The Mad Scientists of New Jersey (Volume 1)

by Chris Sorensen

  Roxie sat up, her jaw askew, her hair a wet mess about her face. She gingerly felt the spot on the top of her head where Eddie had gripped her hair during the trek underwater. “I think I might be permanently bald on top.”

  “Well,” Eddie said half laughing, half crying. “If anyone can pull that look off, it’s you.”

  Eddie helped her to her feet. Once they were up, they turned to look at the room around them.

  Room? No. It was as big as a warehouse or an airplane hangar. Eddie had once been to New York’s Grand Central Station and there was something about this place that reminded him of that Manhattan landmark. A fraction of the size, of course, but still.

  Ceilings reached up high above with metal girders zigzagging back and forth. Enormous windows that looked out at nothing but the depths of Lake Mohawk. A smooth marble floor and mural-covered walls that seemed to glow. As a matter of fact, they were glowing. That accounted for the light that filled the place without a single light bulb to be seen.

  Around the periphery of the room sat large metal worktables piled high with equipment. The individual stations reminded Eddie of Mesmer’s workspace, although these were as tidy as Mesmer’s was chaotic.

  The old lab. This must be where they made all of their amazing discoveries, those Mad Scientists. Where scientific mysteries were solved, and wild notions were brought to life.

  “I hope they left us a few spare parts,” Eddie said, dispelling the sense of awe that had settled over him. “Lemme get this belt fixed, and we’ll get out of here.”

  “What parts are you looking for, exactly?” Roxie asked as they headed further into the room. “Or is this one of your I’ll-know-it-when-I-see-it sort of deals?”

  “One of those,” Eddie said. He spied a particularly cluttered table and made a beeline for it. It was covered with boxes of glass cylinders, spools of wire, piles of disassembled, dust-covered machines. Roxie helped him clear a space to work, and Eddie removed the belt and set it on the table.

  The belt had truly been through the wringer, all water-soaked and burnt-out. Was this really what he hoped to trade Sly for his father?

  “Stop thinking so much and get to work,” Roxie said. He caught her looking at him and could swear she’d just read his mind.

  “That guy Sly will probably laugh in my face once he sees this.”

  “No, he won’t,” Roxie assured him. “Because you’re going fix it and set everything right.”

  “Yes, I do believe he will,” echoed a voice from the far side of the room.

  Eddie turned, trying to locate the voice’s source. A man stepped into the light. Aside from the cane he sported, there was no denying who the man was.

  “Dad?” Eddie gasped.

  It was all Eddie could do to keep from racing across the room. Instead he pressed his back against the workbench and stared at the man before him.

  “Is it really you?” he asked.

  His father chuckled. “I could ask you the same thing, son.”

  That laugh! How Eddie had missed it. He threw aside the belt and his caution and rushed into his father’s arms.

  “Careful,” his father said. “Squeeze me any harder and you’re likely to break me in two.”

  Eddie looked up at him. He was haggard, his chin rough with whiskers, but it was him. It was his father.

  Eddie turned back to Roxie. He was grinning like a fool. “This is Roxie. Roxie, this is my dad.”

  Roxie stepped forward to shake Eddie’s father’s hand, but her sleeves had stretched so much that she was only able to offer him a handful of wet sweater.

  Bill Edison regarded his son. “I’m sure you have a lot of questions.”

  Eddie sure did. “Where have you been? How did you get here?” The words tumbled out of him. “Why do you have a cane? How did you hurt your leg? Where’s Sly? What’s going on?”

  His father shook his head. “Don’t I get a hello first?” Eddie squeezed him again.

  “Sit,” Bill Edison said to his son, motioning to an old wooden chair next to the workbench. “Let me enlighten you.” Eddie did as he was told. Nervous, excited and happy all at once, he clasped his hands in front of him to keep them from fidgeting.

  Roxie stood apart, feeling somewhat awkward, as if embarrassed by the waves of emotion passing back and forth between father and son. She moved closer to the workbench and poked through a box of springs and gears.

  Eddie’s father waved his arm at the large room. “You asked where I’ve been. Well, you’re looking at it. Ever since the night I was taken, I’ve been here in this desolate place. How did I get here? I was dragged here by that maniac’s mechanical henchman. The devil, he calls it. The Jersey Devil. Make no mistake about it – the only devil around here is Sly himself.”

  “How can that be, Dad? Mesmer told me the story about the flood. How can he be here? Now?”

  “That is a question I have no answer to, I’m afraid. Suffice it to say that he is here,” said his father.

  “Where?” Eddie glanced around nervously.

  “Out hunting down that friend of yours. That Mesmer fellow. He talks about him endlessly. I think it irks him that he can’t figure out who the man is.”

  “To tell you the truth, neither can I,” said Eddie.

  His father winced at that. “Sly hates having any blind spots. And when he gets frustrated he takes it out on me. A day without food, perhaps, or another in the dark. Petty punishments from a petty man.”

  “But why did he take you in the first place? And why has he kept you for so long?” Eddie felt close to tears.

  Eddie’s father nodded toward the belt on the table. “It seems to have something to do with that. I take it you know what it is?”

  “It’s a time travel belt,” Roxie interjected. She realized she should have let Eddie answer, but staying silent just wasn’t in her nature.

  “Clever friends you keep, son. But do either of you know where it came from?” His father waited for an answer.

  Eddie hadn’t thought about that. He had been too concerned about getting down here, getting it fixed to ponder the belt’s origin. “I suppose it came from down here in the old lab.”

  His father nodded. “True. But whose brainchild is it? Who conjured it up from their imagination, designed it and fashioned it into the device you now possess?”

  Eddie hazarded a guess. “Sly?”

  His father’s eye twitched violently. What had the man done to his father to make him react so at the mere mention of his name?

  “No. That honor falls to none other than Mr. Thomas Edison himself.”

  “I don’t understand,” said Eddie. “If he invented time travel way back in the olden days, why don’t we know about it? Like the light bulb or his other inventions?”

  His father walked over to the table and placed his hand on the belt. “It was the one invention the Mad Scientists deemed too dangerous to allow to exist. Edison was always fixated on the how of his inventions and never the why. In most cases it didn’t matter to the rest of them, but this time they all vowed to destroy it so that it would never fall into the hands of those who might use it... unwisely.”

  “Like Sly?” Roxie asked.

  Eddie’s father turned to her and smiled. “Yes. Like Sly.” As he took a step toward Eddie, he stumbled and had to catch himself with his cane.

  “What happened to your leg?” Eddie asked, concerned.

  “Broken,” said his father, “by that metal beast when he snatched me away. I had to set the bone myself, splint it myself. Oh, it’s healed up, but it’s never going to be the same. Nor will I.”

  The mournful look on his father’s face made Eddie wish he knew what to say. Instead of saying a word, Eddie grabbed the belt and held it out. “Let’s just smash this thing, and go home. Okay, Dad? Please?”

  Bill Edison looked down
at the belt and slowly pushed it back toward Eddie. “No, son.”

  “Why not?”

  “If we destroy it, Sly will fix it. If we hide the pieces, he’ll find them. And once he has a working belt in his possession, there’s no telling what he’ll do with it. No. I say we fix it up and use it ourselves.”

  “Use it how?” Eddie asked.

  A wry smile spread across his father’s face. “Imagine if we were to travel back to the moment Sly snatched me away. Only this time, we were ready for him. We’d stop his scheme before it even had a chance to commence!”

  Eddie smiled back. “Do you really think we can do it?”

  “With two Edisons on the job? Absolutely.”

  Eddie welcomed the chance to work beside his father in silence. He felt like every word out of his mouth was a question when really all he wanted to say was how much he had missed him and how incredible it felt to see him once again.

  The two busied themselves taking the belt apart, laying out each component in a line so that putting it back together would be less of a chore. Seeing how Roxie squirmed, watching over their shoulders, Eddie gave her the task of making sure each part was tallied and accounted for. Relieved to have a job, she grabbed a notepad and pencil and got to work.

  When the belt lay in pieces, deconstructed before them, Eddie’s father took it in, a puzzled expression on his face. “I can’t make heads or tails of it,” he said, the hint of frustration underneath.

  To Eddie, the whole of it instantly made sense. It was like being on chapter two of a book and suddenly knowing how the whole thing would end.

  He also noticed something odd. Although both he and his father were working on the belt together, he got the distinct impression that he was taking the lead, he was guiding his father through the repair rather than the other way around.

  “Hand me that coil,” he’d say, and his father would obey. “Toss me those conductors,” he’d say, and his father would oblige. He had never felt so sure of himself before. His hands moved like lightning. He improvised and adapted as he reworked the inner configuration of the time travel belt.

  Roxie struggled to keep track of the traffic patterns of the pieces. She’d warn Eddie when he ignored a bit of wire or substituted a tube from the belt with one from the pile on the table. Still, Eddie plowed ahead, tweaking the design, making alterations, fixing flaws.

  He didn’t know how much time had passed since they’d started repairing the belt, but now Eddie noticed that the light outside the large windows had disappeared.

  He held up the belt. “Almost done. Just a few more adjustments and it will be good as new. Better maybe.”

  His father cocked his head. “Better? How better?” It was odd. Something in his father’s voice caught him off guard.

  Roxie held up a handful of parts. “What about these?” She seemed a bit upset, as if her job of keeping track of the order of things had just been proven to be unnecessary busy work.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Eddie reassured them. “Let’s just say I added a few upgrades.”

  His father put his hand on his shoulder. “That’s wonderful. We’ll show that Sly who’s the boss, eh, son?” Eddie felt himself shy away from his father’s touch. But why?

  “Hey, Dad?” Eddie wasn’t sure what he was going to ask.

  “Yes?”

  “When I was out there underwater, trying to find my way in here, I came across a statue toppled over in the street.”

  His father looked perplexed. “And?”

  “I’m pretty certain it was a statue of Thomas Edison. And he had a light bulb clasped in his hand.”

  Eddie’s father’s eye twitched. “Is there a point to this story, son?”

  Eddie looked to Roxie. She was regarding him curiously, head cocked, brow furrowed. If he could just get her alone for a minute, he could ask if she too had felt the mood in the room shift.

  “We were stuck out there,” said Eddie. “I mean, really stuck. I thought we’d never find our way in here. Then, something remarkable happened. The light bulb it, well, it lit up and boom! My brain was flooded with questions. Questions that helped me find a way out of that mess.”

  His father turned away. “The bulb is a brainstormer, one of Edison’s little devices. A gift to this community. He set it atop his own statue so that others might benefit from its use. Or so the story goes.”

  “So, it asks you questions,” Roxie said, “to help you solve your problem?”

  “It does.” Bill Edison stepped closer to Eddie. “And do you have a problem in need of solving, son?

  “Yes, I do.” Eddie tried to swallow, but his mouth had gone dry. “I’m wondering why you’ve been calling me son when you used to always call me Sport.”

  His father’s eyes narrowed. “What would you imagine the brainstormer would say?”

  “I think it would ask, ‘What does your gut tell you?’” asked Eddie.

  “Your reply?” His father gripped his cane tightly.

  Eddie didn’t want to answer, but it was too late to hide his suspicions. “That you aren’t my father.”

  The man before him raised his cane high over his head and brought it down onto the floor with an electric crack. An earsplitting whistle filled the air in response, and in that horrible instant, Eddie knew he was right.

  A blinding flash of light lit up the room followed by a gust of wind that swirled about, knocking over chairs, scattering pieces of equipment. A distortion grew in the center of the room, a bending of space that looked like rippling water. Eddie watched open-mouthed as something stepped through the ripples, appearing out of thin air.

  “Pudge!” Roxie cried.

  Pudge gripped his head as if the trip back from the time between seconds had shaken his marbles. Standing behind him, holding him tight was Sly’s lumbering, metal beast. The Jersey Devil.

  “Good to see you again, my mechanical friend!” the man chortled. He walked over to where the monstrosity held Eddie’s friend captive. “It would seem Mr. Edison has riddled us out.”

  Pudge stepped forward, but the metal beast hauled him back. “Eddie! He’s not your father! He’s...!”

  “I know,” said Eddie. “He’s Vernon Sly.” He stared at the copy of his father. “Aren’t you?”

  “Guilty,” said Sly. “Of that and a good many other things.”

  “Why do you look like my father?”

  Sly laughed. “There’s a tale in that!”

  Pudge pulled free of the Jersey Devil’s grip, his shirt ripping. “Don’t listen to him, Eddie! Run! I can handle this joker. Get out of here!”

  With a flick of his cane, Sly commanded and the Devil obeyed. It struck Pudge with its metal claw, knocking him to the ground.

  “Interesting company you keep, young Edison,” smirked Sly. “The girl has some portion of brains, but this one...” He nodded to Pudge. “I can feel my intellect being sapped by his mere presence.”

  Eddie could feel his hands balling into fists. “Leave them alone.”

  “Oh, I have no intention of harming them. That is, unless you choose to be uncooperative.” Sly pointed to the table where the belt lay, a few short adjustments from being finished. “Shall we finish what we started?”

  Eddie stood firm. “Where’s my father? What have you done with him?”

  “He’s around,” said Sly.

  “I’m not going near that belt unless you promise, promise to give him back to me.”

  Still groggy from being knocked to the ground, Pudge mumbled, “No!”

  “And let me and my friends go,” Eddie added.

  “Don’t do it, Eddie!” Roxie cried. “He lies. He’ll say anything to get you to help him.”

  Eddie turned to her. “I know he does. But what choice do I have?”

  “I’ll beat ‘em to a pulp as soon as I get up,�
� said Pudge, still curled up on the floor.

  Sly raised his hand to his heart. “Complete your repairs, and I shall return your father to you. You have my word.”

  With Roxie’s calls for him to stop ringing in his ears, Eddie turned back to the worktable. “I need a length of copper filament, a one-inch gear, some wax...” As he rattled off his list, Sly procured each item. The man stood by as Eddie worked, his face a mix of amazement and envy as Eddie’s hands flew over the invention.

  When he was done, he lifted the belt and held it out to Sly. The man accepted it with hunger in his eyes. “At last...”

  “I’ve done my part. Now, you do yours. Where’s my father?”

  Sly’s eyes caught Eddie’s, and there was a dark twinkle in them. The kind of twinkle one got when they were about to deliver the punch line to a particularly nasty joke.

  The man tapped the tip of his cane on the floor. “My friend, would you be so kind as to show this young man where his father is?”

  The mechanical creature released Roxie and lumbered forward, gears whirring, metal wings rustling. It stood at attention before Eddie, towering over him. He could feel the heat coming off of its outer shell. Its blazing red eyes bore down into his.

  There was a grinding sound, metal on metal, as a small hatch opened in the thing’s stomach. More heat poured out of the thing like an oven. The creature reached inside, pulled something out and held it in its clawed hand.

  The object it held was the shape of a brick. Black in color, its surface was covered in interlocking gears that spun and clicked.

  “What’s that?” Eddie asked.

  “That, my dear Mr. Edison,” Sly snickered, “is your father.”

  His father? Eddie stared at the object, not making a move.

  “Go on. Take it, take it,” prodded Sly, gleeful now. “Or rather... take him.”

  Eddie reached out to take the thing from the Jersey Devil. His hands were shaking so much he feared he’d drop it. It was warm, and he could feel the inner workings of the device buzzing and spinning inside.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll save you the trouble of asking. This is one of my greatest inventions. I call it my Repository. I fashioned it before the great flood.”