Edison Fox & the Repugnatrons

            With a deep sigh, he cleared his throat and lifted the handset.

            ‘Ah, um, yes?’

            ‘Mr Bruntingthorp?’ said a brusque voice on the other end.

            ‘This is he,’ replied the headmaster, trying not to sound meek.

            ‘Good.  This is doctor Archimedes Mendoza Chuzzlewick.  We spoke ten minutes ago.’

            ‘Let me think,’ said Mr Bruntingthorp, trying to appear so important that he could have received hundreds of other calls in the last ten minutes.

            ‘Do excuse me,’ cut in the doctor, ‘I do tend to forget how common the name Archimedes Mendoza Chuzzlewick is.  Do you need more time to remind yourself of our conversation or do you feel that you have adequate control of your ageing memory?’

Mr Bruntingthorp made to kick himself under his desk but connected instead with a crate of twelve year old malt whisky, which was meant to have been staff Christmas presents but now formed the backbone of his daily medicinal routine.

            ‘No, I remember,’ the headmaster admitted once his ‘medicine’ bottles had finished chiming from between his feet.

            ‘Good.  Have you brought the boy?’

            ‘Yes but what, exactly, did you say was wrong with him?’

            Doctor Chuzzlewick made annoyed noises in Bruntingthorp’s earpiece.

            ‘Literitis Horribilis.’

            ‘I can’t say that I’ve ever heard of that one…’

            ‘And you being a fully trained doctor and all,’ put in Chuzzlewick.

            ‘But…how did he, you know, get it?’ said the headmaster, now throwing a worried look in the direction of a rather unkempt looking thirteen year old sitting opposite him.  A thirteen year old that was becoming increasingly concerned for his own well-being the more of the headmaster’s conversation that he listened to.

            ‘Contact with books,’ said Chuzzlewick.  ‘Ink to be exact; especially the old stuff.  You know, like the classics.  The ones that have been knocking around for some time.  Anything by Shakespeare for example.  What’s that Midsummer’s something or other?  All that “blah blah blah”, a worst offender that one.’

            ‘I…I’m sorry,’ stuttered the headmaster.

            ‘Oh, not to worry, Bruntingthorp; not your fault.  So, are you releasing him into my care or do we have to wait until the whole school is struck down because I assume you know what’s worse than Literitis Horribilis?’

            ‘Er, no; what?’

            ‘Vocabulus Vomitus, and that’s what it leads to when you leave it too long.’

           ‘Oh cripes!’ gasped the headmaster.  ‘But what about your phone number, I should really be checking on his progress?’

Sitting at the other end of the line with a Bluetooth earpiece and both hands darting across a computer keyboard in the darkness of his bedroom was not the celebrated doctor Archimedes Mendoza but another thirteen year old by the name of Edison Fox.

 ‘Yes, of course you can have my number,’ replied Edison, who was wearing a t-shirt that was enough to earn him a month of detention on its own.

Hacking into the British Telecom intranet site Edison located a suitable existing customer account and assigned them a second telephone number.  He then re-routed all incoming calls to that number to his own mobile phone.

           ‘Right, here you go,’ he said and read out this new number.  ‘Now, can I speak to Master Cripps please?’

           ‘Of course,’ said the headmaster and he passed the receiver to the bewildered boy opposite, being careful not to make any skin-to-skin contact in the process.

           ‘Uh, yeh?’ said the boy into the receiver.

           ‘Jimmy, it’s Edison.  You’ve been sprung.  Grab your pencil case – the big job’s on!’

> Five hours twenty-two minutes later, the Bon Café, Qual De Granelle, Paris

           ‘So, do we have a deal, Monsieur Scratchit?’ said Edison, staring across the table to where a rather large woman and her even larger husband sat grinning foolishly back at him.  Billy-Bob and his wife were small time farmers from a forgotten corner of America who had for years tipped away the ‘dirty water’ from their cow shed until Billy-Bob was informed that the dirty water was in fact oil and that he was now a multi-millionaire.  Fortunately for Edison and unfortunately for Billy-Bob, the farmer had “no idea how much a millionaire be…”

           ‘Hey,’ boomed Billy-Bob, ‘this place is quaint, aint it just? Eh?’

           ‘Yes, it is.  Quaint,’ agreed Edison in his best morose French accent, wishing the Parisian ground would open up and swallow him and there and then.

           ‘Yep, I’m lovin’ this place!’ enthused Billy-Bob.  ‘Think I’ll buy it, what d’ya reckon hun?’

The waiter, who appeared to be trying his very best to avoid approaching their table, shuffled over to them with a resigned look on his face.

           ‘Excusez-moi, puis je prendre votre ordre?’

(Excuse me, may I take your order?)

           ‘Hey, that’s cute!’ declared Billy-Bob.  ‘Er, what did he say, boy?’

Edison secretly typed into his electronic French translator, which he had hidden under the table; it was not reacting well to his shaking finger jabbing at its screen and he suspected it was giving him some rather bogus phrases but it would have to do.

           ‘He is asking what drinks we would like – espresso’s all around?’

Billy-Bob and Nancy had absolutely no idea what an espresso was but it sure sounded quaint so they nodded gleefully.

Edison tapped into the translator once again.

           ‘Combien de vos clients sont morts?’ he answered confidently.

(How many of your customers have died?)

The muscles in the face of the waiter shifted into a completely incomprehensible expression.

           ‘Er, excusez-moi?’

Must be my pronunciation, thought Edison, I’ll try another.

           ‘Ce restaurant n’est pas aussi bon que le McDonalds!’ he said with a smile.

(This restaurant isn’t as good as McDonalds!).

The waiter threw a terrified look towards the serving hatch as the chef hurled a decidedly blue expletive through it.  Sensing that maybe something had been lost in translation, Edison simply said, ‘Café, café.’

(Coffee, coffee.)

The waiter gave a curt nod and shuffled off, taking the long way around to avoid passing the serving hatch.

           ‘So Monsieur, do we have a deal?  It’s a truly fantastic property.’

           ‘Well,’ said Billy-Bob, ‘it sure sounded awesome but I ain’t seen it yet.’

             ‘It’s right there,’ said Edison, pointing out of the window.  ‘I present to you Le Tour Eiffel – the Eiffel Tower!’

Billy-Bob and Nancy took a collective intake of breath that almost sucked the tablecloth clean out from underneath the condiments.  Edison smiled in a devious way – the line was cast, the bait surely taken.

           ‘Jeepers Creepers!’ exclaimed Billy-Bob.  ‘That…that’s…awesome!’

           ‘Awesome!’ mouthed Nancy who, having lost the ability to conjure up her own words, stole Billy-Bob’s instead.

           ‘It’s true, it’s true; it is most awesome,’ said Edison in what he considered to be an Oscar-winning display of wretchedness.  ‘I’ll be heartbroken to see it go.’

The silence that followed was broken by the return of the waiter who placed a tray of coffee-filled cups onto the table whilst casting its occupants a contemptuous glare.  Edison tapped his finger across the display of his handheld translator and turned to thank the waiter.

           ‘Je pense que ce café a été bu avant!!’

(I think that this coffee has been drunk before!!)

The waiter gave them all a withering look that required no translation and turned instead to serve a new arrival.

            ‘What do you think, Monsieur?’ said Edison.

            ‘Forty thousand you say?’ said Billy-Bob.  ‘What’s that in cows?’ he asked his wife under his breath.

            ‘Humm, about thirty acres worth,’ she replied.  ‘But it depends.’

            ‘What on?’

            ‘How close they stand together…’

Billy-Bob sat and contemplated the proposal for a while, trying to wear a look that made him appear shrewd but only managing to look perplexed.

            ‘I smell a rat!’ he said finally.  There was a scraping of chair-legs from behind them.

            ‘I…I don’t understand,’ said Edison as a man in a smart suit rose rapidly to his feet and made his way over to the serving hatch.  Edison placed his hand discretely into the pocket with his mobile phone and pressed a few, well practised buttons.

            ‘Forty thousand dollars; it seems awfully cheap for such a big hunk ‘o metal,’ said Billy-Bob.

            ‘Well, I am letting it go cheap to ensure a sale.  My grandmother is really ill and if we don’t sell it before she…you know…goes, the government will seize it and turn it into tin cans.’

            ‘Hummm,’ said Billy-Bob, rubbing the stubble on his chin.

Outside, a limousine pulled up and a person wearing a chauffeur’s uniform three sizes too big got out.  Edison excused himself and went outside to meet him.  Billy-Bob and Nancy watched as the chauffeur said something to Edison and then placed his hand lightly on his shoulder.  Edison appeared to go weak at the knees before nodding solemnly.  Patting the chauffeur on the arm he made his way back into the café, ignoring an escalating fracas between the suited customer and the café manager.

            ‘Are ya okay, little buddy – you seem kind ‘a pale?’

            Time to reel him in, thought Edison, his upper lip quivering in a tremendous display of distress.

            ‘It…it’s my grandmother; she has passed away,’ said Edison, pulling out a handkerchief and blowing into it loudly.

            ‘Well, I’ll be.  I’m truly sorry about that, little bud.  Hey – does that mean the deal’s off?’

Edison fixed him with a calculating gaze.

            ‘Well, not if you sign on the dotted line straight away,’ he said, pulling out some “extremely legitimate” deeds and a pen within the blink of an eye.  ‘I could date it from yesterday when my poor, poor grandmother was still with us.’

Billy-Bob paused; Edison pushed the deeds and the pen closer, his heart seeming to skip several beats.

            ‘Okay, little buddy, you’ve got yourself a deal!’

In Edison’s head, a fanfare played out in triumph whilst behind them a commotion broke out in the kitchen.

            ‘What do you mean, you’re the ‘elth inspector?  Rat?  What rat?  There is no rat in my kitchen!’  There was a strangled cry as four members of staff attempted to stop the head chef from bludgeoning the grey-suited health inspector with a large frying pan by jumping on top of him.

            ‘I think it is time we were going,’ said Edison.  ‘Our business here is done.’

As they made their way toward the door, Edison thought it only polite to thank the rather terrified looking waiter.

            ‘il semble que votre chat est en feu!’

           (It seems that your cat is on fire!)

Buy Now, Pray Later

Edison and Jimmy sat in Edison’s bedroom, staring at the neat little bundles of cash spread out over the bed, and chuckling.  Jimmy wanted to throw the money about like they do in the movies but Edison was having none of it – he liked order and a strict sense of control, not that you could tell from the state of his bedroom, which was littered with all sorts of cannibalised electronic gadgets and gizmos the use for which Jimmy could only guess at.

            ‘And we are totally untraceable?’ said Jimmy.

            ‘Totally,’ replied Edison.

            Jimmy smiled, imagining all the things that he was going to spend his share on.

            ‘Only I wouldn’t want to hand it back now, I’m getting used to having it around.  What’re you going to buy first?’

            ‘We can’t go flashing it about,’ said Edison, being typically sensible.  ‘People will get suspicious if we seem to have suddenly come into money.’

            Jimmy pulled the same face that he usually reserved for his mother when she tells him he can’t have any more pocket money.

            ‘Maybe I could buy a new beanie, I’ve had this one for years,’ he said, pulling his threadbare hat off of his head and releasing a tidal wave of curly black hair from underneath.

            ‘I think that would pass as inconspicuous,’ muttered Edison.  His eyes flitted across a computer screen showing images from a French newspaper’s website causing him to snigger wickedly.  The page showed Billy-Bob Scratchit being led off by the police whilst Nancy, a wild look in her eyes, brandished a clutch of ‘authentic property deeds.’

Edison sniggered once again before closing the web page.  From within the centre of a table full of equipment came a buzzing noise quickly followed by an electronic ditty.  Jimmy leant over and plucked Edison’s mobile phone out and flipped open the lid.

            ‘Looks like you’ve sold another piece of rope from Titanic’s fishing nets.  Did the Titanic ever have any fishing nets?’

            ‘No,’ replied Edison in a completely matter-of-fact way before loading up his eBay profile on the computer and checking out the sale.  ‘One born every day.  Honestly; if I were to sell my mum’s kettle and say it was from ET’s spaceship, it would cause a bidding frenzy.’

            ‘Hey, they’re out there, you know!’ insisted Jimmy, missing the point as usual.

            ‘Don’t start with all the “little green men” rubbish again.’

Jimmy knew better than to argue a point with Edison.  Mostly he never won and, even when he did, he got that sneaking suspicion that Edison had planned it that way and that, in fact, he’d lost after all.

            ‘Anyway,’ said Jimmy, changing the subject, ‘I was on eBay the other day and I came across someone selling off crates of bottled water really cheap.  Thought there must be a scam in there somewhere if you were to buy some.’

            ‘Really?  Hummm, Holy Water from the Vatican…’ mused Edison.  ‘Did you get the item number like I taught you?’

            ‘Oh, yeh,’ he said and pulled out a scrap of paper from his pocket, along with a month’s accumulation of fluff and sweet paper wrappers.  ‘Ready?’

            ‘Yep.’  Edison dropped his computer’s cursor into the eBay search box.  ‘Fire away.’

Jimmy started to read out the long line of numbers that identified the item from all the others in the vast eBay database.  Edison typed them in with one hand.

            ‘There’s a number missing,’ said Edison as Jimmy fell silent.

            ‘I know, I can’t read my own writing.  The last one’s either a six or an eight.’

            ‘Well, it’s a fifty-fifty situation.  We’ll go for a six, shall we?’

Edison hit the number six and clicked the search button.  The website paused whilst eBay churned through its database to find the item before eventually opening a new page on the screen.  Edison’s eyes narrowed as they scanned down the page.

            ‘Now this,’ he said with an enthusiasm which was most unlike him, ‘is definitely not crates of water.’

Jimmy managed to tear his eyes away from the piles of money and ambled over to Edison’s desk.  Edison began to read out the item description.

“Nuclear powered Neutrino Concentrator for connection to the subatomic intergalactic information superhighway.  This is not the older AstroUplink Two Thousand (the one that had a tendency to run at temperatures of around six thousand degrees and would incinerate everything within fifty metres – including you) but the much better DataBlast Six Thousand and Twelve which never gets above room temperature, even when connecting to the infamous Lobster Nebula all the way over at sector G901.  If it’s faultless connection to the widest Universal networks available that you want, this is the equipment you need.  Failing that, it makes a great talking point for dinner parties if placed on the mantelpiece.”

Edison scrolled down the screen to where a small movie file was running on a loop.  It showed an object that looked like a horizontal lava lamp with wire couplings at either end.  However, unlike the limited colours found in actual lava lamps, this one contained what looked like rolling and writhing storm clouds which constantly cycled through a mind-boggling array of the most indescribable colours that Edison had ever seen in his life.  His eyes were drawn to this even more than the piles of money lying on his duvet and he knew there and then that he had to have it.

            ‘I have to have it,’ he said, not taking his gaze from the screen.  ‘Pity it’s a windup,’ he added with a sigh as the logical side of him won the battle between common sense and daydreaming.

            ‘It’s got to be – hasn’t it?’ said Jimmy.

            ‘Of course, probably knocked that movie file up in Photoshop.  Look at the sellers’ online name – “Crackpot Joe”, sounds really dodgy.’

            ‘Sounds like one of your scams,’ said Jimmy, moving closer to the screen and reading the detail for himself.  ‘Although, it does say payment on collection so at least you’ll get to see it before you part with your cash.’

            ‘True,’ said Edison thoughtfully.

            ‘Any bidders?’

            ‘Only one, “Space Cadet Carl”.’

            ‘What’s the price up to?’

            ‘Nine pounds and thirty pence with twenty nine minutes to go before the end of the auction.’

            ‘Go for it, it’s not like you can’t afford it.’

Edison thought for a short while before shrugging and grabbing the keyboard.  Within a few keystrokes he had loaded up another website which acted as an automatic bidder when using online auction sites.  Instead of sitting in front of your own computer and repeatedly typing in higher and higher bids, this system allowed you to type in your maximum amount  before initiating a bidding frenzy on your behalf  in the last few seconds of the auction.  As long as your maximum price is high enough, then you’re virtually guaranteed to win the item.  This is why Edison always won auctions as his stored maximum bid was ten thousand pounds – plenty enough to win anything that he wanted on eBay.  Edison entered the auction item code for the Neutrino Concentrator into the auto-bid website.

            ‘Easy,’ he said smiling, ‘what could possibly go wrong?’

> Twenty-eight minutes and fifty seconds later, Edison’s bedroom

           ‘Well?’ asked Jimmy from the bed, where he had taken to thumbing through the bundles of cash again.  ‘How’s the bidding?’

            ‘Still nine pounds and thirty pence,’ replied Edison as he scrutinised the page before hitting the refresh button.  ‘Ten seconds to go.’

Jimmy joined him at the computer and watched the final seconds count down.

            ‘Eight, seven, six,’ counted Jimmy, ‘five, four – still nine pounds thirty – two, one…’

Then a computer somewhere on the internet leapt in with Edison’s bid of nine pounds and thirty-one pence.  At this moment in time things were fine and would’ve stayed that way if a counter-bid of nine pounds and thirty-two pence hadn’t been put in by the same auto-bidding computer on behalf of Space Cadet Carl.  In that last second, this unseen computer went into battle with itself, constantly bidding, being outbid and re-bidding ever higher and higher amounts for both Edison and Space Cadet Carl.

            ‘Yes, you’ve won!’ declared Jimmy one second later, doing a little jig on the spot.  But Edison didn’t answer; he was too busy feeling his face become numb.  ‘How much did you win it for?’

            ‘Urm, well…bargain really,’ said Edison, his voice thin and reedy.  ‘Nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine pounds and ninety nine pence…’

Jimmy looked at him with an astounded expression.

            ‘Real inconspicuous.’

> One hour and twenty three minutes later, the dark end of Crowfoot Street

It may have been a cruel twist of fate that had caused Edison’s pockets to be lighter at the end of the auction by nearly ten thousand pounds but his luck wasn’t all out as the seller of the Neutrino Concentrator lived just a short ride away from Edison’s house on the number forty-eight night bus.  Having walked onto the bus with nearly ten thousand pounds cash and insisted to the driver that they still qualified for half price tickets, Edison and Jimmy hopped off twenty minutes later in an area that was so notoriously grim that the bus driver wished them luck before slamming down the accelerator and disappearing in a cloud of exhaust and tyre smoke.

            ‘Are you sure we’re in the right place?’ whispered Jimmy, his eyes darting around all the dark places, expecting a mugging at any moment.  Edison squinted at the map on his handheld computer from where it sat hidden in the inside pocket of his jacket – no need to advertise themselves as targets, he thought, as he too gave a quick scan of their somewhat dodgy surroundings.

            ‘Yes, number thirty-two.’

Seeing that the number hanging in two pieces on the door closest to them said “13”, they began to walk cautiously down the street; caution being required mainly because most of the street lamps had been used for target practice and only every fifth one worked.

            ‘Why do I have to carry all the money?’ whispered Jimmy who looked around desperately as if he had just shouted “free cash!”  Edison looked him up and down cynically.

            ‘Let’s just say you don’t look the type.’

A dog charging out of an alleyway, knocking over several dustbins in the process, almost gave Edison and Jimmy heart failure.  As it disappeared into the gloom, a determined looking ginger-tom gave chase just moments behind – even the cats were mean in this part of town.

As they made their way further down the street, the houses became more and more run down.  Eventually they arrived at the ruin that was number thirty two.  Its threadbare roof and crumbling brick walls seemed only to remain standing courtesy of the rampant ivy that almost covered the building.  Only a few small windows were visible as an eerie red light seeped reluctantly out of them.

            ‘Are you sure about this?’ said Jimmy, throwing number thirty-two some seriously dirty looks.  ‘It’s rather expensive for a lava lamp and I quite like being alive.’

            ‘I know, but I’ve got a funny feeling about this; I think it’s worth having.  I’m sure we can come to an agreement on price.’

Edison walked through the gateway, the actual gate having been wrenched off some time ago and hurled into next-door’s overgrown front garden.  He passed an old rusting estate car sitting up to its door-handles in long grass; it had one wing missing, the windscreen was held in by sticky-tape and wedged onto the driver’s seat was an old crate.

           ‘Are you coming, Jimmy, or am I leaving you out here with the cats?’

Jimmy seemed to think about it for a moment or two before the howling cry of a fearsome feline terrified him into following Edison rapidly up the pathway, whimpering.

Stopping at the ancient-looking door Edison knocked on the layers of peeling paint.  As his knuckles made contact, the section of wood beneath caved in, leaving a hole looking through into darkness.  Edison glanced at Jimmy, who seemed to be preoccupied with scanning the building to ensure that all the knocking hadn’t started a chain reaction of collapse.  Edison looked back and gasped – which, by Edison’s standards, was a shriek for anyone else – because staring back out at him from the hole was an eyeball.  This eyeball seemed to flick back and forth, taking in the sight of them both before a voice spoke from the other side of the door.

            ‘Who?’

            ‘My name is Edison, and this is Jimmy.  I won your auction for the Neutrino Concentrator.  I’ve come to collect.’

            ‘Ah!  Yes, yes, okey-dokey-sure.’

There was a succession of snaps, cracks, clanks and creaks before the door swung inwards, something it was not at all pleased about having to do.  Edison and Jimmy jumped backwards.  From the darkness a short figure shuffled toward them.  The owner of the roving eyeball was one of the oddest people that either of the boys had ever set their own eyeballs upon.  Being no more than five foot tall, he seemed to have very little neck and, judging by the way he shuffled, either no knee joints or else unfeasibly stiff ones.  Edison’s eyes moved from his wispy white hair to his clothes, which looked like they came from a Rocky Horror stage show – presumably this was Crackpot Joe.

Crackpot wandered out a little way from the door, his face taking on a worried expression as he looked up into the night sky, which is not easy to do when you virtually no neck.  After a few moments, he seemed to have satisfied himself about something and pointed his head and shoulders back in Edison and Jimmy’s direction, smiling with what appeared to Edison to be an oddly wide mouth.

           ‘Happy good-good.  Come!’

Crackpot turned on the spot and shuffled back toward the house.  Edison and Jimmy shared a look that spoke volumes but seemed to conclude very little and so followed in the man’s awkward footsteps.

The inside of the house was almost as dark as the street outside.  The same dim red glow that could be seen at the windows fell limply over the décor that time forgot.  The wallpaper was only matched in its bad taste by the swirly, headache-inducing carpet.

Crackpot led them down a hallway packed with cardboard boxes.  As Edison past, he noticed that some of the boxes were humming, some vibrating and others were emitting an odd glow from within.  Crackpot reached in to an open box and pulled out an ornate vase which he offered to Edison.

           ‘You like?  Nicey, nice!  Used to belong to Queen of Sheba!  Old!  Five hundred cash! Only one in world!’  He turned to face Jimmy.  ‘You want?  Nicey hat!’ he said, staring intently at his beanie.  ‘Want swap?’

Jimmy looked affronted that anyone would try and part him from his beloved beanie hat.  ‘No!  I’ve only got one!’

Crackpot shrugged and shuffled off through a seriously crooked doorway.

           ‘You’ve got to give it to him,’ said Jimmy, ‘he’s good.’

Edison turned the vase over and studied it.

           ‘Not that good,’ he said thrusting it into Jimmy’s hands, ‘it’s a Royal Doulton.’

They followed Crackpot into the adjoining room where the little man was sitting at a rickety desk upon which was a computer so big and old that it took up most of the desktop.  As Crackpot tippity-tapped on the keyboard, the computer hummed and rattled like an old central heating boiler and was probably giving off just as much heat.  However, it wasn’t the computer that caught Edison’s eye, or even the strange way that Crackpot’s hands seemed to stay perfectly still while his long fingers with their oddly purple fingernails jumped all around the keys, but rather it was the beautiful glowing object next to it – the item that he’d come to collect.

           There’s the nuclear powered Neutrino Concentrator, thought Edison.

           ‘There’s the lava lamp,’ said Jimmy.

Over at the desk Crackpot had pulled up the online auction sale details.  He laughed such a violent, cackle of a laugh that he almost rolled off his chair.

           ‘He he!  One born every day!’

Edison gritted his teeth.

           ‘Jimmy, the cash.’

Jimmy reached into his pocket and pulled out the bundle of notes; now that Edison had seen the Neutrino Concentrator for himself, he was so captivated that it never occurred to him to question the sense in handing over so much money.

Crackpot pulled the Concentrator toward him and disconnected leads from either end, leads which looked to Edison to be plugged into the computer itself.

           ‘Does it…er…work?’ said Edison rather lamely seeing as he didn’t really know exactly what it was that the device did, he just felt that he ought to ask.

           ‘Work?  Yes work.  Work well.  Powerful.  Best money can buy!  Would give demonstration but-’ he cast the skies another worried glance through a grimy window, ‘-in hurry.’

The deal was done.  Jimmy gave Edison the money who passed it to Crackpot.  With a sense of high reverence, Crackpot slowly and carefully lifted the Neutrino Concentrator, its clouds rolling and shimmering in a million shining colours, walked toward Edison, and dropped it into a Tesco’s carrier bag.

           ‘Sold!  Now, want buy kettle?’

Close Encounters of the Transferred Kind

The next day, Jimmy wandered into school as normal only to find his fellow students parting before him like the Red Sea.  As he reached the main doors Mr Bruntingthorp saw him coming, screamed and slammed the doors shut, shouting “Get back to the clinic!” through the letterbox.  Jimmy didn’t need telling twice and with a shrug of his shoulders, ambled his way over to Edison’s house.

            ‘Bruntingthorp’s off his trolley,’ he said as he manhandled Edison’s over-excited pet dog, Fleabag, out of the bedroom door.  ‘He’s spraying down the pupils as they go in.’

Edison grunted in reply; he was sitting in the middle of a large pile of cables that he was attempting to couple up to the Neutrino Concentrator, but was having no luck in finding one that would fit.

            ‘Anyway, what’re you doing home?’ added Jimmy.

            ‘I called the school, explained that as the one that hangs around with you all the time, that I wondered what was up with you.  They told me to see someone called Doctor Archimedes Mendoza Chuzzlewick and not to set foot in the school until I had a certificate of good health…’

            ‘Oh.  What’re you up to?’  Jimmy sprawled out on the bed, which didn’t look like it had been slept in that night.

            ‘Crackpot Joe had this thing coupled up to his computer somehow; I’m trying to find a lead that will fit.’  He cast aside yet another incompatible cable.  Jimmy let his eyes wander lazily around the room.

            ‘What about that one?’ he said, pointing at a table lamp in the shape of a little green alien.  Edison rolled his eyes but he’d tried everything else.  Unplugging the cord from the back of the lamp and taking the other end out of the power-pack, he tried it in the Concentrator.

            ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Edison, ‘a perfect fit!  Just need to get the other end connected to the computer.’

Within ten minutes he had cannibalised a data cable from a printer and spliced it onto the other end of the lamp lead.

           ‘Ready?’

            ‘Whack it in,’ said Jimmy.  Edison carefully pushed one end of the cable into the data socket on the front of his computer.  He turned and looked at the Concentrator – nothing, the clouds within were still rolling gently with a slow morphing of one colour into another, just as it had been doing all night.

            ‘Never mind,’ said Jimmy.

Edison rubbed his chin in thought but then activity on the computer monitor caught his eye – a message had popped up in the middle of the screen:

“New hardware detected: Nuclear Powered Neutrino Concentrator.  Attempting to locate computer interface drivers…”

Edison  held his breath.  Another message popped up to replace the last one:

“Drivers installed; your new hardware is ready to use!”

Jimmy and Edison exchanged looks; Edison’s was one of surprise, Jimmy’s was one of incomprehension.  Nothing new there then.  Having no idea at all what the Neutrino Concentrator did for the computer, Edison turned to the internet for help – someone out there must know.  He opened an internet browser window on the computer.  No sooner had the page started to load then the Concentrator shook, settled and then hummed gently, the clouds now spinning and tossing within the confines of the glass device.

            ‘Interesting…’ muttered Edison.

            ‘Sparkly!’ offered Jimmy, staring at the entrancing lights of the Concentrator.

A short but dramatic tune announced the successful loading of the internet browser page.  Edison’s brow furrowed as he studied the text on the screen.  For a second he thought he was looking at an eBay page but then he noticed some subtle, and some not so subtle, differences.  For starters, the spinning logo in the top left corner was a three dimensional “gBay” symbol with what looked like shooting stars orbiting around its centre, the words “The biggest auction site in the known universe!” beneath it.  In the middle of the page were links to items that looked like the contents of a Star Trek fanatics loft whilst on the left were some rather odd headings:

Transportation:

Battle Cruisers / Star System Grand Tourers / Shuttle Craft / Interceptor Discs / Alien ReCon craft / more…

Life Style Accessories:

Low Gravity Laser Tennis / Asteroid Billiards / Clay Comet Shooting / High Atmosphere Skiing / Moon Walking / more…

Home Accessories:

Food Replicators / 3D Holo-TV Sets / Cyber Butlers / ‘Life Pause’ Cryogenic Bed Chambers / HolTran Transporters / MatGen Transporters / Neighbour Neutralisers / more…

 Edison smirked as he read down the screen.

            ‘What’s this site?’ asked Jimmy, looking over Edison’s shoulder.

            ‘Someone’s idea of a joke I think,’ said Edison, clicking on an image entitled “Pet-o-Nator, the ultimate answer for stopping the K9 next door from peeing on your Astroturf!”  As the information for the item loaded, a message at the bottom of the page appeared:

“Welcome back, Crackpot Joe; would you like to place a bid on this item?”

           ‘Check it out,’ said Jimmy with a chuckle, ‘it thinks you’re the weirdo that sold the Contemplator!’

            ‘Concentrator.’  Edison’s face took on a smug look as he manoeuvred the mouse pointer over the “Bid Now!” button.

            ‘Nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety nine pounds for a Neutrino Concentrator, eh?  I hope that he really wants a Pet-o-Nator…’

He dropped the cursor into the box marked “Your Bid in GalCreds”

            ‘How much do you reckon a GalCred is worth?’ he mused to himself, assuming that he was unlikely to get a sensible answer from Jimmy.  ‘I’d say that Crackpot Joe would be happy paying one hundred thousand GalCreds,’ he said, entering the amount into the web page and hitting the “Confirm Bid” button.  As the screen cleared, it refreshed with the message:

“Congratulations, you are the current high bidder!”

           ‘That should do it,’ said Edison, leaning back in his chair and linking his hands behind his head.

           ‘Yeh, unless a GalCred is like, totally weeny,’ said Jimmy, trying to convey something really small by squeezing his thumb and forefinger together tightly and squinting.

           ‘You’re right.’

Jimmy smiled benignly, basking in a feeling that was mostly unknown to him – being right.

           ‘Humm,’ continued Edison, ‘how to make life uncomfortable for our stumpy little friend?  I know, I think it’s time for Crackpot to make another sale…’

Edison clicked the “Sell an Item” button, skipped the “Large” option, the “Very Large” option and even the “Gigantic (collection only)” option before finally selecting the “Planetary or other celestial object” option.

           ‘Impressive,’ said Edison, ‘these jokers have really done their homework.’

He manoeuvred the cursor into the description box and entered the following:

“For sale: a small blue planet covered mainly in polluted water.  Quite new at around four and a half billion years old but needs some remedial repair due to being thrashed around the solar block by its clueless inhabitants (sold separately).  On the whole, a good runner.  An abundance of added extras are thrown in for free including Oxygen, Silicon, Calcium and life-choking greenhouse gasses but the real bonus is the vast stockpiles of lethal nuclear waste which give it a nice green glow at night.  Feel free to drop by and check it out, it’s parked just down from Pluto and is the one that leaves a smog trail as it goes.  Take it away today for just one hundred GalCreds!”

Edison folded his hands behind his head and smiled.

           ‘That ought to do it…’

The rest of the day slipped by uneventfully, if you don’t count the havoc caused by Edison’s dog, Fleabag, who had finally worked out how to open the bedroom door, meaning Jimmy had to keep throwing him back outside the bedroom.

            ‘What do you think this dial’s for?’ said Edison, having discovered it hidden under a sliding cover on the Neutrino Concentrator.

            ‘No idea,’ said Jimmy, who was more interested in wiping Fleabag’s slobber off of his hands and onto his school trousers.

            ‘It must be a power gauge of some sort,’ said Edison and he twisted the small dial to its maximum, causing the psychedelic clouds to thrash around like a ferret in a rucksack.

            ‘That’s upset it, that has,’ said Jimmy who was regarding the concentrator with a nervous eye for it had now started to vibrate around the desktop so manically that an avalanche of paper slid off a shelf above and covered it.

            ‘Better turn it down again,’ said Edison and he reached under the paper and turned back the dial.  The Concentrator calmed instantly.

            ‘That’s better,’ said Jimmy, ‘I thought it was going to go-’

            BANG!

The lights flickered and crackled and a low frequency hum filled the room before fading out.  In the hallway fleabag started to whine.  They stared as a black object hovered momentarily in mid air just a few feet away from them before thudding to the floor.  For a few seconds they simply gawped at the thing on the carpet – it looked like a chicken egg, painted black and with three rows of holes set at different levels.

            ‘What-’ started Jimmy.

            ‘Don’t know,’

            ‘How-’

            ‘Not a clue,’

            ‘Where-’

            ‘No idea,’ said Edison, who had got over the initial shock and was now studying the object with his natural curiosity, albeit from a few feet away.  Then without warning, an intense neon blue light shot out of the small holes in the object, causing Edison and Jimmy to shield their eyes until it had died down.  When it had, they froze as before them stood two suited beings, each brandishing what any self respecting Trekkie would tell you was a ray-gun.

A metallic voice came from one of the visitors, presumably the one that raised its gun and pointed it directly at Edison.

            ‘Go ahead, make my millennium…’

> The Bridge, Repugnatron Battle Cruiser, the dark side of the Milky Way

Gragnash, the supreme overlord of the Repugnatron Battle Cruiser, which was now orbiting a moon that strangely resembled an old prune, grabbed a long, rusty-looking lever with a gnarled, slime-coloured hand that strangely resembled a filthy squid and yanked it with all his might.  It did nothing, but that didn’t unduly worry him for he had absolutely no idea what any of the leavers did in the entire ship.  However, this didn’t stop him from yanking any that happened to come within arm’s reach of his hover trolley, just as a show of authority.  After all, if the other crew members thought even for a second that he’d no idea how to inflict pain upon them via some leaver or pulley, then he’d have been flung into the Grate-o-Matic and turned into supper centuries ago.

Suspecting that he was being watched out of the corner of one of a subordinate’s four eyes, Gragnash hovered over to another lever and pulled that one too.  Three hundred decks down, a junior Repugnatron toilet cleaner, complete with mop and bucket, was sucked out of a trapdoor in cubicle number sixty-six and vented into space.  If Gragnash had realised, he’d have been most pleased with himself.

When it came to levers and pulleys, there was an almost inexhaustible supply on board Repugnatron Battle Cruisers.  This was down to their irrational fear of technology.  They understood levers.  They understood pulleys.  They even understood heavy, swinging clubs (the type full of wood, not dancers).  They did not understand switches, they did not understand buttons and they most certainly did not understand keyboards.

However, a spaceship cannot be made from levers and pulleys alone and, disagreeable as they are, the Repugnatrons had been forced to make some compromises and some alliances – both things that they despised almost as much as computers – in order to heave their huge, collective bulks off of their planet and into space.  The compromise was to install hateful technology into their battle cruisers but to put it out of sight, activated safely by pulleys and levers.  The alliances were made in order to get hold of this technology and were with the Techonoids of Zeta Twelve, a race of tall, benign-looking creatures that could completely re-solder a computer’s motherboard with one hand whilst writing out a list of races that they needed to annihilate with the other.

It doesn’t matter how good your chef is – an alliance like this is a recipe for disaster…

           ‘Lieutenant Fragnut,’ said Gragnash in a guttural voice, ‘have you found anything suitable in this sector yet or do I have to haul your miserable hide over the hull during re-entry again?’

Fragnut, who like all Repugnatrons resembled a pile of elephant droppings, zoomed his hover trolley desperately back and forth along the extensive range of levers and pulleys that disappeared first into a black box and then a Neutrino Concentrator, his slimy arms a blur.  Just when Gragnash had produced a particularly gnarly looking club and was making his way toward Fragnut, the Lieutenant seemed to have pulled it out of the bag in time.

            ‘S…sir, I got something; it’s perfect for the job – and cheap!’

            ‘Oh, really?’ said Gragnash, and he belted him around what you might call a head anyway.

> Edison’s bedroom, approximately 4.5 seconds after receiving unexpected visitors

To describe their visitors as “little green men” was a bit of a gross assumption and was probably politically incorrect in whatever part of the universe they came from.  They were wearing what appeared to be a one-piece green shell suit and a helmet and weren’t even particularly little, being around the same height as Edison and Jimmy.  Either way, they were making their presence felt and one of them had been skipping its diplomatic classes of late.

           ‘Welcome t…to our planet,’ stuttered Jimmy, giving a small bow.

            ‘Shut it!’ barked a metallic reply from the alien who had, up to this point, been pointing its ray-gun at Edison but now swung around to point it at a petrified Jimmy.  Outside the door, Fleabag was going nuts.For a few moments Edison made no movements or any attempts at conversation.  In his mind he trawled through a library-full of ever more ludicrous scenarios that would rule out the life-changing possibility that this was, in fact, an uncomfortably close encounter of the third kind.  Having exhausted the library of options, the head librarian turned off the lights and kicked him out.  Nothing for it then, he’d have to do something that seriously aggrieved him – he’d have to tell Jimmy for the second time that day that he was right, and had been all along.

            ‘I’m not sure,’ he said finally, ‘what the etiquette is for this sort of thing but-’

            ‘Silence!’ snapped the one with the itchy trigger finger who then appeared to be scanning the room intently whilst staying rooted to the spot.  It then turned and leaned close to its colleague.  ‘We need to find it before we can make a positive ID.’

Edison watched them closely, noting with interest how their helmets seemed to crackle with electricity where they accidentally touched and how, when they moved around, it was just a few footsteps from where they had appeared.

Suddenly the quiet visitor pointed over to the desk where a pile of paper was glowing gently.  ‘There?’

            ‘You!’ shouted the serenely challenged one.  ‘Move that!’

Edison frowned; he could see a pattern emerging here.

            ‘Please, be my guest,’ he said, moving aside to allow them access.

            ‘Don’t mess with me, I’ve got a Vaporiser and I’m not afraid to use it!’

A smile played across Edison’s face.  Putting his hand into his pocket he pulled out his phone and threw it at the quiet one.

            ‘Eeeky!’ it shouted as it instinctively went to catch the phone only for it to somehow slip through its fingers and onto the floor.

            ‘Freeze!’ shouted the other.  ‘One more move like that and I’m going to turn you to dust!’

            ‘Whatever,’ said Edison, shrugging in that way that only teenagers can manage, ‘but I don’t think you can, and shall I tell you why?’

If Jimmy and Edison could see through those helmets, they would have noticed a fleeting glance of panic between the two visitors.

            ‘Because-’ he continued but he got no further as Fleabag crashed in through the door and leapt across the room, his tongue lolling out of his mouth like the Red Barron’s scarf.  In one gulp he swallowed the black egg-like device on the carpet, taking with it what Edison had correctly predicted were the visitors’ projected holographic images.

            ‘That should buy us some time,’ said Edison with a smirk whilst patting Fleabag on his head but Jimmy had opened the bedroom window.  A whirring noise came in from the garden along with a couple of flashes of bright light.

            ‘Erm, not that much time,’ said Jimmy, sounding suddenly nervous.

            ‘Why?’ replied Edison, who had stopped congratulating a very pleased-looking Fleabag.

            ‘Because our visitors are back – and they’ve brought their spaceship with them!’

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