by Andrew Post
“All right.” He nodded toward the stairs and led the way up, not offering to help me. I liked that. I ambled up one riser at a time and listened to Squishy’s toenails clicking on the metal as he rushed ahead.
Thinking back now, I was hoping, then, despite Thadius’s zaniness and how easily he could be compared to a cartoon mad scientist werewolf, that I could find a friend in him. I kind of had my doubts—he seemed to like me but in that put-upon uncle sort of way, like he’d rather not have to babysit me, but did it because there was a free six-pack in it for him or something. Nevertheless, I wanted to be someone he enjoyed having around, someone who beamed when he saw me, the kind of people who had inside jokes and “Remember that one time” kind of memories. I’d been lonely for too long, and I wanted nothing more than to fast-forward to when it wouldn’t be weird if we hugged. I wanted a hug. A hug from someone who cared about me. I hadn’t had one in a long time. That’s all.
Upstairs, I marveled at the massive shelves loaded with goods of all shapes and kinds. It wasn’t the side of the store you’d see as a customer. This is where all the excess stock was kept. Most of it was still in the enormous cardboard boxes it’d arrived in, still held to pallets with straps and wrapped in clear plastic.
Thadius flipped on some lights. Only about a third of them actually flickered on, here and there.
“Does all of Duluth have power?” I asked.
“No, but I got in early, cornering that particular market after the A. Friend of mine used to sell and install solar panels. After everything settled, I went by to check on him, saw he’d left the whole load of them behind. Finders keepers.” He pointed to a foggy skylight high above. “I got ten rows of ’em up there on the roof. Powers this place as well as the Siren House and about fifteen houses in the area.” He shuffled toward the set of swinging doors leading onto the shop floor. “Ain’t no business quite as profitable as an under-the-table business. Don’t tell the Smocks,” he said, cupping his mouth in mock conspiracy spinning. He made jokes, even though it would mean his death if they found him out. A way of coping, I guessed. Like how Dad told me about how ambulance drivers have really sick senses of humor because, as he said, “they just have to.”
Out in the store itself, the aisles still stood, but scant merchandise remained on their shelves. The men’s and women’s clothes were pretty well picked over, especially the shoe department, every variety of boots gone. The bed and bath area was all but vacant too, every blanket and towel swiped long ago. In the aisle for camping goods, only a single child-size sleeping bag remained.
Leading the way, Thadius talked over his shoulder. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to give the joint a sweep before we get started. Sometimes I come across a couple of folks who think this place would make a good home.”
The grocery store half of the Mega Deluxo was ransacked. What had been left behind seemed to be what wouldn’t travel well or looked too gross to consider taking; the pig’s feet, sardines, and caviar appeared untouched. I could see dirty footprints vaguely, the tracks leading to bread, crackers, and cereal aisles. Everything left had been sitting on the shelves for years, I had to remind myself. Sadly, that box of Cap’n Crunch should probably be left where it lay.
“But what about you?” I asked, clack-thumping along beside Thadius.
Squishy walked behind me a few paces, taking the place in with wide eyes, dragging a sweater sleeve that painted a clean swath on the floor behind him.
“This place isn’t yours either technically,” I said.
“I told you I was an employee, pre-A. They make you sign this thing when you become a Mega Deluxo team member that says you’ll do your utmost to provide reliable service for guests, and that’s precisely what I’m doin’.”
The three frozen foods aisles held nothing at all, just shimmering white smears clinging to glass. One cooler was piled with stuff, but I could tell it was Thadius’s personal stash. A few frozen pizzas and about two dozen boxes of ice cream sandwiches.
“I thought you would’ve been a . . . playwright or professor or something before the A. Why would you work at a place like this?”
“Had to keep food on the table. Sure, I wrote a few plays that never got produced, had a couple short stories published online, but nothin’ I ever did got any real attention. Apparently in a pre-A world, I lacked original ideas. Funny, seein’ how that label’s been peeled off with all my competition now gone.” He turned left and right as we walked toward the front of the store, running his flashlight up one aisle, then the next. “After getting canned from the radio station I was working at for cussin’ on the air, I started here. First over there in the deli, then in the photo center—back when people still had their pictures developed—then I was promoted up to what the Mega Deluxo Corporation called a store optimization scout. When they decided to put one of these up somewhere, I’d go into town, figure out the people, and adjust what that particular store should carry to best match the tastes of the area’s dominant demographic.”
“So the Siren House is just a front?”
He stopped, turned, his brow crumpled. “A little warnin’ next time you decide to change gears like that would be nice. But, sure. Yeah. At the same time, though, everything everyone does is a front. Look, don’t tell any of the Thickskulls I said that, all right? It’s just that . . . what you and I can do: that’s my true passion. Don’t get me wrong, like I said, I love the arts. But when it comes to true creative freedom, this is where my heart lies. Maybe I like it so much because it’s forbidden. I don’t know. But I know I always worked better when I had limits. Give me an entire wall to paint and I’ll just stare at it. Give me a postcard and a crayon and I’ll get ideas straight off.” He gestured at the yawning store, rank with dead air and mildew. “This is my postcard. This is where I create. Really, I think a lot of what I do at the Siren is making up for lost time, if I’m honest.”
The flashlight beam halted, hovering its blue-white cone in the dusty darkness. Behind it, I heard a scratchy sound—Thadius running a hand down his unshaven cheek. He sighed. “All right, I don’t see anyone in here. This way.”
We went along the front of the store, passing lane after lane of registers. I nearly tripped when I saw how Thadius had gone about securing the front doors. He’d accumulated a mountain of shopping carts, a heap twice my height. Each cart’s push bar had then been intricately decorated with cat collar bells, painstakingly balanced glass bottles full of now-useless coins, and a plethora of other noisemakers. Then, sandwiched between the hill of carts and the glass doors: a few stretched-out spirals of razor wire. Overkill much?
“Comin’?”
“Yeah.”
In the far corner of the store, we came to where the electronics department once stood. It’d been completely rearranged. All the movie and music shelves were slid aside, and struck matches littered the floor among the dirt and trash. The phone and camera kiosk was now a large, wraparound desk. The walls were wallpapered with sheets of corrugated aluminum, held in place with rivets. Dry-erase boards on easel stands manned the perimeter of the space, all covered in multicolored scribblings I couldn’t even begin to decipher. The televisions had been ripped down, set in a messy heap, and the power cords that used to power them were now all braided together, terminating in one massive, ugly splice that fed directly into the side of what looked like an automatic car wash station plopped right inside the Mega Deluxo Superstore.
Thadius’s cauldron. It was enormous. Two doors, one in the front and one in the back. A large array of displays on the side. Inside, through tinted windows, I saw a familiar network of builder-arms like those of my own cauldron, but these were easily twice as large. Multiple knuckles per spidery builder and impressive arrays of lenses that reminded me of grape clusters.
I stared at Thadius’s machine with envy. One could make a car or a small elephant—or something even bigger—in there if they had the right fixins.
Thadius flipped a few switches. A radio came
on, fading in fuzzily. Hanging fluorescent tubes flickered up, slowly establishing their buzzing glow. The cauldron came on last, lighting up at various points along its face. The spidery builder-arms within whined and stretched as if they’d been poked awake. The monitors clicked on in turn, all showing the familiar logo of Flashcraft Industries. A taste of ozone filled my nose. A slight headache started between my eyes—the same way I’d get whenever Dad and I went to any packed electronics store. But it was more focused, the sensation as well as the tiny headache—and all coming from this one source right before me. As if Thadius had noticed me move myself back with one clack of my crutches, he said, “Takes a whole week of cloudless skies for the solar panels to charge her to a hunnert percent. One billion volts.”
I felt Squishy sidle up to my right crutch. I glanced down and saw he was hiding behind it, keeping it between him and the ominously buzzing machine.
Thadius pulled up a chair that was vomiting foam out its side and plopped into it. He kicked his feet up on the control board of the cauldron, clasped his hands behind his head. “My studio. Ain’t pretty—you don’t need to tell me—but it gets the job done.”
“This thing is huge,” I said. “Why can’t it make things like . . .” I cocked my head to the side, indicating Squishy.
Thadius glanced at the squidmouse. “Listen, buddy. I saw some dehydrated bananas over there in aisle nine on our way in. You like bananas, right?”
“I do, very much,” Squishy said, suddenly unafraid. “Aisle nine, you said? I’ll be back shortly.” He waddled off.
Thadius waited until he was out of earshot, then said, “See, here’s the thing. It’s like the old sayin’ about bigger ain’t always better. Just because this clunker here is huge doesn’t mean it has the same power as yours.” He knocked on its side, the machine ringing resoundingly. “With cauldrons, the exact opposite is true. I’m goin’ to guess since yours is a series six, it’s probably about the size of two refrigerators side by side. Am I right?”
“Yeah, but look, as impressive as all this is, I need to know what the heck he is.” I took one hand off a crutch to wave over my shoulder in the direction Squishy had gone. “Because, I mean . . . I wasn’t raised with any real religion or anything, and I don’t even believe in God, really, but isn’t messing around with stuff like this a little dangerous?”
“Morally speakin’, you mean?”
“Sure. Morally. Logically. Humanely. Take your pick. I just don’t think taking a cartoon character and making him real is obeying the rules of . . . well, everything. This shouldn’t be possible. He has a pulse. He . . . thinks. He freaking quoted Descartes this morning.” I took one thump forward. “But I’ll be honest when I say I don’t know enough. I don’t know how you jazzed him or whatever. I . . . want to know, but I’m . . .”
“But you’re not sure if you want to know.” Tobacco lit, he shook a match out. “Right?”
I swallowed. Nodded. “How did you get wrapped up in all this? I mean, why do it if the Smocks are so determined to root out all scratchers? Why even start?”
Thadius dropped his feet off the control panel, his boots slapping the filthy floor. Studying me, he clicked the pipe across his teeth from one corner of his mouth to the other. He smiled. “I had the bad luck of being born in reality, and I wasn’t at all happy about it.”
Track 10
PARTICLE MAN
I waited for more. “That’s it?”
“What do you want?” He threw his hands up and sat back. “I mean, I could tell you how I designed him and—”
“Yes, that’d be great,” I said flatly. “Start there, if you wouldn’t mind.”
“Well, even though I was way too old to be watchin’ cartoons, I always liked that Dr. Werewolf & Squishy show and—”
“No,” I said, shaking my head. “This.” I pointed at the cauldron he was proudly sitting beside, as if it were the white whale he’d single-handedly wrestled to shore. “How does some guy who works for Mega Deluxo as a merchandizing scout end up getting involved with this?”
“You sound like a Smock, talking like that.”
“Did you find it or what?”
Thadius puffed out a swirling knot of gray. He waved it away. “It was a present.”
“From who?”
“Whom.”
“Fine. From whom?”
“A friend.”
“Okay, so where did your friend get it?”
“The gettin’ place.”
Groan. “And where’s that? Where do they come from?”
“Far as I know, Flashcraft Industries was started by someone who used to work at Hark Telecom. Remember them? Based out of Chicago, got shut down before the A? Probably even before you were alive.” He sighed. “I’m old.”
“Stop doing that,” I said. He’d already dodged so many questions: how he knew about my mom, how he knew my name, how I was supposedly a writer. I’d never told Mosaic Face any of that. Now Thadius was trying to scoot around this. “Just tell me.”
He picked up a remote and pointed it at a round device resting on the old cell phone kiosk. The Siren House stage appeared in jittery holograph, the color off and the sound delayed.
“Are you listening to me?” I said.
“I am,” he said, watching the holo. A band was playing, the lead singer doing a pretty spot-on MC Hammer, genie pants and everything. The other night’s show, I assumed. Like a football coach would pour over vide of old games.
“Would you look at me?”
Thadius turned his head toward me and blinked owlishly. “Okay, I’m lookin’ at ya. Now what?”
“I thought I was part of this thing now.”
“You are, but it’s healthy to keep a little mystery in all relationships.” He winked. “Keep the focus on him, will you?” he commented about his holocap performer.
“So how does it work? How does it break things down?”
He snorted. “Do I look like the kind of guy who could explain these things? I know how to work them, not how they work. A painter ain’t gotta know how his red paint ended up being red. He just knows how to use red. You don’t think I know where each word in my plays comes from, whether Latin or German or whatever.” He jutted his single thumb over his shoulder at the cauldron. “To me, this thing is the same as a keyboard, a paintbrush. What I can do with it—that’s all that interests me.”
I double-checked the squidmouse was still out of earshot. “But you had me use a canister to make Squishy. My cauldron didn’t have any of those when we found it, didn’t have anything plugged into it at all.”
“Oh, so you want to know about the fixins.” He gave the word a dazzle, flashing his eyes and everything. Always the showman.
I swallowed. “Yeah.”
“What grade were you in at the time of the A?”
I had to think. “Sixth.”
“So you probably weren’t much covering physics quite yet, I imagine.”
“No, not really. I think something about Isaac Newton was the closest we got.” Mom tried to teach me some math on the rig, but it refused to sink in. I’d just get restless and eventually cranky between bouts of sighing, so she gave up, slammed the math book, and threw it on the burn pile, saying I probably wouldn’t need it in real life anyway. I’d immediately hugged her.
“Well, tell me you at least know about the laws of physics, right?” Thadius lowered the volume on the projector.
“A body in motion stays in motion and blah-buh-blah?”
Thadius laughed. “Right. And here are two laws in all the blah-buh-blah: The total energy in an isolated system remains constant, no more and no less. Energy cannot be destroyed; it can only change form. You know those, I hope.”
I nodded. I did now.
“Later on, they expanded the law. Particles that make up mass can be changed into nonmatter particles. You burn somethin’, for example. That’s changin’ somethin’, a log—or as the Smocks do, a scratcher—from somethin’ that has mass particle
s to somethin’ that does not.” He uncapped a light-pen to draw some complicated formulas in the air. “Don’t go thinkin’ while I was working here I was some Good Will Hunting-type. Mosaic Face taught me all this.”
As he wrote, I said, “So to make something like Squishy, you can’t just create him out of nothing.”
“Right. You can’t just pluck somethin’ out of thin air. Unfortunately, magic does not really exist. Although, my argument is that it does; it just involves a crap ton of technology behind it. See, to borrow a quote, you can’t have somethin’ for nothin’. To make Squishy, I had to take somethin’ else, break it down, make it into fixins, and rearrange it to my liking—things from our isolated system,” he said.
“Do you have some other kind of tool for that or do you use the cauldron?” I glanced at his machine. “You could probably fit a cow in there.”
“Sometimes I use the cauldron. Other times a more mobile tool.” He got up, went over to a locked cabinet barnacled with bumper stickers, and produced a hodgepodge of tubes, metal frames, a wooden stock, and a triple-lensed barrel in a metal heat shield. With its mechanical innards all showing, it looked more like someone threw a magnetized shotgun into a junkyard and rolled it around for a while.
Thadius held it proudly in both hands. “This is a harvester rifle. Does the same thing as that”—he tipped his head at the scanning chamber of his cauldron—“but it’s a lot easier to carry.” He turned the gun around. Sticking out of the bottom of the dark wood stock was what appeared to be a garden hose nozzle. He screwed a canister onto it.
The thing looked extraordinarily heavy, and to accommodate its weight, Thadius strapped on a harness—complicated, with various buckles and snaps and catches. Once it was sufficiently latched, he spoke to me, eyeing the harvester with a good deal of affection. “I call it my scythe. Not because of any Grim Reaper stuff but because that was another tool used to collect goodies from the user’s surroundin’ environment.” He bounced the scythe rifle in his hands. “Plus, I think it’s a cool name befittin’ somethin’ like this.”