by Philip Henry
‘Yes, I have an appointment. You must be one of the Daves.’
‘That I am,’ Dave answered. ‘Are you the guy with the submarine batteries?’
‘No,’ the businessman said quickly. ‘I represent the conglomerate of Yoshi, Goldberg and Mitchell.’
Dave looked blankly at him.
‘Head of their automotive solutions department,’ he clarified.
‘Oh, right. You’re the car guy. That was today, huh? OK, you’d better come in.’
He scraped the majority of the mud off his shoes and followed Dave inside.
The businessman gazed in awe. Everywhere was covered in machines. Some moved while others were floating in baths of water. Lights were flashing on several, for reasons he couldn’t fathom. He stopped at a hamster cage and noticed the wheel was hooked up to a transformer, which in turn was hooked up to a computer that was plotting a graph.
He turned in amazement. ‘You’re running a computer off a hamster wheel?’
Dave gave him a smile and said, ‘Add a little caffeine to his food mix. He has too much energy and needs to run it off. A simple transformer does the rest. I’ll just get Dave and we’ll show you the car.’
He wandered off while the businessman watched a dog cross the room to a panel of pedals; one blue, one yellow, the other six grey.
The dog stood on the blue pedal and a small amount of kibble dropped down a tube into a bowl. The dog ate the kibble then pressed a grey pedal and the same tube deposited water into another bowl. The dog drank its fill and then pressed the yellow pedal. A robotic arm came out of the wall and began extending and contracting its fingers. The dog put its head into the hand’s grasp and got his head and ears scratched, then walked away.
The businessman laughed. ‘My god, that’s amazing,’ he said, in barely more than a whisper.
‘It took us ages to get that working,’ Dave said, though not the Dave he’d already met, a different Dave. ‘Even though it’s a fairly simple machine. It was the pedals you see, we didn’t realise until a vet friend of ours told us that dogs are dichromatic; they can only see two primary colours, blue and yellow, but they have a higher perception of black and white than we do, which means they can easily distinguish between dozens of shades of grey.’ He smiled at the awestruck businessman. ‘Hi, I’m Dave Watt. I think you’ve already met my compadre, Dave Drake. You’re here to see the car, right?’
He nodded and followed Dave through the garage and out the back doors. ‘Isn’t your… the ah, the other Dave going to join us?’
‘He’s a little busy. He genetically engineered this strawberry and this guy’s coming round to see it, so he’s trying to figure out a way to get it through the doorway without squishing it. I can show you the car.’
They stepped outside and saw the old VW Jetta sitting in a field that had obviously been used for test drives. ‘OK,’ Dave said. ‘You’re not the first person who’s come to see us this week, so if you’re going to make an offer, I’d suggest you do it sooner rather than later.’
‘Well, I’d have to speak to my superiors before…’
‘Yeah, yeah, I know. OK, you guys never believe this so I’m not even going to touch the car. I’ll let you do everything. First thing first, for this prototype, we made the fuel tank out of Perspex so you could see when it was empty.’ Dave motioned the businessman to check, which he did. He got down on his knees and looked under the car and found one Perspex fuel tank: empty. Nothing else that could possibly be a fuel tank was under there. He stood and nodded to Dave.
‘Now you’ll want to get in and try to start it.’
The businessman got in and turned the key repeatedly. The starter-motor kicked but the engine didn’t start. After a couple of minutes of trying he got out and faced Dave.
‘Happy that it’s out of fuel?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you bring what I asked?’
The businessman laid his briefcase on the bonnet of the Jetta and opened it. He took out two cartons of apple juice. ‘Stopped at Tesco on the way here.’
‘OK, pour it into the fuel tank.’
The businessman eagerly punctured the seal on both cartons and unscrewed the fuel cap. He gave Dave a last look then poured them in.
‘OK, get in and try to start it again. Remember it will take a couple of tries to work its way through the system.’
The businessman got behind the wheel again and turned the key. On the third try the car came to life and ticked over happily. The businessman started laughing out loud. ‘It works! It fucking works!’ Dave nodded. ‘What… what’s the performance like?’
‘Take it for a spin and see for yourself.’
‘What? Really?’
Dave nodded. The businessman clicked his seatbelt on and raced off down the field. It had amazing acceleration. He flew towards the end of the field at sixty miles an hour. He hit the brakes and pulled a one-eighty. He raced around the perimeter of the field, waving at Dave each time he passed. The engine was so quiet. This was incredible. He hadn’t been this exited about driving since he was a teenager. On his fifth circuit he noticed Dave had disappeared. He skidded to a stop at the back of the garage.
He got out and looked under the car at the fuel tank – there was still plenty in it. It was even easy on juice. Literally! He laughed out loud again. My god he was going to make a fortune on this. He pulled out his phone but couldn’t get a signal. He had to speak to his boss right away. If there were other parties interested, they had to make an offer now.
The first Dave he had spoken to walked out to him. The businessman ran to him and hugged him. ‘Where have you guys been all my life?’
‘Getting stoned mostly.’
‘Right. And do you still…?’
‘No. Special occasions only; birthdays, anniversaries, Saturdays.’
‘Well, whatever works for you. This is amazing! Do you have a land-line? I have to speak to my company right away.’
‘Dave’s on the phone. We had a call. You can use it when he gets off.’
‘Does the car work with any fruit juice or just apple?’
‘Any fruit juice will do. Orange has the best fuel consumption for some reason we haven’t figured out yet. Grapefruit is like high-performance petrol.’
‘How? How did you do this?’
‘What? Oh, the engine.’ Dave looked towards the front doors of the garage and started walking towards them as he talked. He seemed distracted. ‘The converter on the engine takes the fructose from the fruit juice and converts it into dimethylfuran. The first one we made ran on ethanol but it evaporated too quickly.’ They were at the doors now and walked outside to the side of the house. Dave kept looking at the door. ‘And the one we made that ran on water had very limited power.’
‘You made a water-powered engine as well?’ The businessman was drooling. He needed to get these two signed to an exclusive contract, now!
‘Yeah, it extracted the hydrogen, but like I said, it wasn’t very powerful. The car could only do about 15 miles per hour. Still, we used it to power our jet-ski and that worked out great. Because it was a lot smaller and even lighter because it didn’t need a fuel tank.’
‘Didn’t need a fuel tank?’
‘No. We figured since it was floating in its own fuel supply, why bother with a tank when you can just take it directly from what’s below you. Took a bit of tweaking to adjust it for freshwater and sea-water, but we got there in the end. I’ll take you down to the lake later if you fancy a spin. We’ve got a converter here but we run the central heating off it, so you can’t really get a good look at the workings.’
‘Your central heating runs off water, too?’ he asked. Dave nodded.
If there were such a thing as an excitement attack, the businessman was having one. They reached the front garden and stopped. Dave was staring intently at the house. The businessman bent over and tried to slow his breathing. He saw the immaculate lawn again. When he had caught his breath he stood up and asked, �
��How do you get your lawn so perfect?’
Dave took two steps towards the house and pushed a button next to the drainpipe. Two spheres popped up on either side of the lawn. One shot a laser towards the other then the spheres moved simultaneously up the lawn on metal tracks, the laser slicing the grass at exactly the same height the whole way up. The laser reached the top and had cut the lawn in less than four seconds. The laser turned off, the spheres returned down the track to their starting position and disappeared again.
The businessman’s eyes were wide, his mouth hanging open.
Dave walked out of the house and Dave tensed. They locked eyes and Dave solemnly nodded to his friend. Dave exhaled and lowered his head. He knew this day was coming, and now it was here. Just when things were looking up.
Dave made love to his wife that night. She knew everything about him. His brief twenty-year dalliance with marijuana, the vampires he had seen and killed, his relationship with Chloe. She didn’t like it, but Trina knew this was something he had to do.
Next morning he got up and pulled the Dream Director [patent pending] sensors from his eyelids. Dave had invented the Dream Director [patent pending] for Trina. When they were first married she used to suffer terrible night terrors. Then Dave had read some research on dreams. It appeared that dreams could be directed. In the experiment dreamers who were in REM sleep had droplets of water dripped on their face. All seven subjects dreamt they were either in the rain, swimming or in a bath. This gave Dave an idea. He attached paper-thin sensors to Trina’s eyelids before she went to bed. When Rapid Eye Movement occurred it triggered a tape recorder filled with sounds of the beach, and voila, she dreamt she was on a tropical island. Trina went from being scared to go to bed at night to taking naps twice daily as well. The subconscious responded to verbal commands too. Dave had made himself a tape where he just said ‘Showering with Marilyn Monroe’ in a soft voice on a continuous loop. It worked. Brilliantly. Fortunately Trina saw the funny side and didn’t mind the extra washing.
Last night he had used the Dream Director [patent pending] to dream of him and Trina on their honeymoon, probably the happiest time of his life. He didn’t wake her when he got up, but kissed her lightly on the forehead before he left the bedroom. He looked back at her, savouring every moment, then left.
Dave made love to his wife that night. She knew everything about him. His brief twenty-year dalliance with marijuana, the vampires he had seen and killed, his relationship with Chloe. She didn’t like it, but Darlene knew this was something he had to do.
Next morning he got up as lightly as he could but she awoke. ‘I don’t suppose there’s anything I can say to make you change your mind,’ she asked.
Dave shook his head.
‘But David, listen, if…’
‘Darlene, I’m not going to argue with you. I have to do this. If you’d seen the things I’ve seen. If you’d lost people… The bottom line is, Chloe needs help and we can help. I’m doing this for you and me and all the little Dave juniors to come.’
There were tears in her eyes but she forced a smile. ‘How many Dave juniors were you planning on having?’
‘Five. Just like George Foreman called all his sons George, I’m going to call all ours Dave.’
Darlene laughed in spite of herself. She wiped her eyes. ‘This is really dangerous, isn’t it?’
Dave clipped the Tooth Tram [patent pending] onto his front tooth. It began polishing the tooth, front and back, then rolled onto the next. It had started the third tooth before Dave nodded slowly. ‘This is as dangerous as it gets, and if we fail, vampires will take over the Earth.’ The Tooth Tram [patent pending] finished the top teeth. Dave unclipped it and clipped it onto the bottom teeth.
‘How long will it take?’
Dave shrugged. ‘I don’t really know. A few days maybe.’
‘Will you call?’
‘If I get the chance, but don’t assume the worst if I don’t.’
Her voice cracked as she said, ‘You better come back to me David Watt.’ Tears were freely flowing down her face now. The Tooth Tram [patent pending] had completed cleaning the bottom teeth and Dave unclipped it.
‘I will.’
‘I love you.’
‘I love you.’
Dave had already loaded the jeep when Dave came out. ‘How did Darlene take it?’
‘Tears. Lots of tears. What about Trina?’
‘Tears last night. I got out without waking her this morning. I had to promise her I was coming back before she’d go to sleep last night.’
‘I just made the same promise.’
‘You got the papers?’
Dave took out a brown envelope from his jacket. They both looked at it. ‘I’ll leave it in the workshop.’
‘Everything’s in there?’
‘Your letter, my letter, our wills and instructions for the transfer of all our patents to Trina and Darlene. That guy who was here yesterday is coming back next week. I think he’s trustworthy. He won’t try to con them. He really wants the Fruit Machine.’
‘He even liked the name. Personally, I think it’s way too camp.’
Dave dropped the envelope on the bench just inside the workshop’s front door. They both stared at it for a moment.
Dave turned to his friend and said, ‘Let’s hope they never have to read them.’
The Daves turned and left the workshop, closing the door firmly behind them.
out for a scroll
Hal sat in his room. The decrepit house he had visited so often was now his home. He had left his possessions behind, and his family. The Master was his only family now. He liked his new life. He had taken to killing easily. Like an assassin, the first one is the hardest, after that it gets easier until it just becomes routine. Here he was, not even a week-old vampire yet, and killing was already routine. Nothing mattered now but his own drives and desires. No Christian dogma to tug at his conscience. No laws of man that he had to obey. He was truly free.
He took out his wallet. When he had gone to the Master to be Made he had taken all his savings with him. This made him snigger now. He had no need for money. If he wanted something he would take it. No one would try to stop unless they wanted to die. He took a lid from a rusted tin box in the corner; some kind of biscuit barrel in years gone by. He turned the lid upside down and dropped the wad of money in it. He had saved almost £700 since he had been working as a porter. It was going to pay for a foreign holiday for him and Sarah. He took out his lighter and set fire to it. He watched the notes curl and burn in the flames. He fingered through the other sections of his wallet. Credit card and ATM card went on the fire. Gym membership card, movie library membership card and a dozen other business and taxi firm cards were eaten by the fire, too. His wallet was empty except for a photo-booth picture of him and Sarah. His arm around her, pulling silly faces. He held the photo above the fire. He could feel the paper heating up. He took the photo away from the heat and put it in his pocket. He dropped his empty wallet on the fire.
Hal went downstairs. He didn’t even notice the Master’s smell anymore. He imagined it was because he smelled the same. The living room was still in total darkness. Even when the Master had Made him, he hadn’t got a good look at him. He liked to keep to the dark.
‘Harold,’ the voice said from the darkness. ‘You’re off to feed?’
‘Yeah, you want me to bring you back someone?’ Hal had never seen the Master feed, or leave the house, or have anyone brought to him.
‘No, but I need you to do something for me.’
‘Name it.’
The voice had moved when he spoke again. ‘Someone is here. An emissary of the carpenter. He means to destroy us. He must not see the dawn.’
‘The carpenter?’
‘The Nazarene.’
Hal thought for a few seconds before it clicked. ‘Oh, that carpenter. Right. Consider it done.’
‘Take Jacqui with you.’
‘Oh, do I have to? She weirds me ou
t.’
‘The followers of the carpenter have many defences against us. You would be wise to take her.’
‘What’s her deal, anyway? Why’s she like that?’
The voice was closer now, louder, but still he couldn’t see the Master. ‘When a vampire is Made its body becomes perfect, and approximately twenty-one years of age. Jacqui was only nine years old when she was Made. Her body grew in stature, but her mind did not. It is forbidden to Make children for this reason. She is a casualty of a vampire with selfish urges.’
‘By urges you mean…’
‘Sexual urges, yes. His preference for children led him to the mortal Jacqui. He ravished her dozens, maybe hundreds of times. When she was on the brink of death he decided he didn’t want his fun to end. He didn’t know that she wouldn’t remain a child when he Made her.’
‘So where is this guy who Made her? Shouldn’t he be taking responsibility for her?’
‘His actions angered me. He and I spent three years alone in a room where he learned the price of angering me. I think, in the end, he understood.’
‘Three years?’ Hal said, almost to himself.
‘Yes, he was weak. Others have lasted longer. Much longer.’ The voice moved again, and now spoke in a coarse whisper. ‘You’ve probably yet to fully grasp what your immortality means. Three years is nothing but a long afternoon in the grand scale of things.’
Hal gulped. He stared into the darkness for a few moments before saying, ‘I’ll go get Jacqui.’
Hal went back upstairs and knocked on Jacqui’s door. He opened it and walked in without waiting for an answer. The door hit the child-sized coffin that she squeezed into every night. She was awake and sat in the middle of her playpen, the fabric below her filthy and stained with dried blood. She was playing with dolls. She looked up as Hal approached.
‘Me is playing dinner party. Do you want to come to me’s dinner party?’
‘No, it looks like it’s black-tie and I’ve nothing to wear, thanks all the same. The Master’s got a job for us.’
