We Install (2 page)

Being only an Igor, Igor does have them. “What about Stacey?” he asks. He also comes equipped with the usual male ductless glands. Anything happening to Archie Kidder's cousin would be a great waste of natural resources, as far as he's concerned.

“Tcha!” Tesla Kidder says, which may mean anything or nothing—he's a master of mad-scientistspeak. He pulls from a shelf not anything or nothing, but something, definitely something. To Igor, it doesn't especially look like a long-range genetic recodifier, but who the devil knows what a long-range genetic recodifier is supposed to look like?

Prof Kidder flicks a switch on the something. He adjusts a dial, then another one—fussily, till they're both just right. Then he punches a button. The something makes a noise. It isn't a great big noise. Then again, it isn't a great big something. A beam of light shoots out. Professor Kidder scowls. That isn't supposed to happen. He pushes another button. The light vanishes. He checks the rest of the instrumentation. By his satisfied grunt, the something still works.

Which means we return to the mall. Kate and the giggle of bridesmaids are in Bed, Bath and Beyond, discussing scented soap. (Testing the recodifier on the mouse and calibrating the long-range version do take a little while, you know.) To be precise—which we'd better be, in a story involving a mad scientist—Kate is discoursing about scented soap. A bad habit, discoursing. Kate is firmly convinced of the superiority of lime to frangipani, sandalwood, or any other scent in the explored universe. Very firmly convinced.

One of the other bridesmaids whispers to Stacey, “She's even starting to look like a lime.”

“It's just the fluorescent lighting.” Stacey, after all, has spent time around a mad scientist. She's tried to explain impossible things before.

But it's not just the fluorescent lighting, and things keep right on getting impossibler. Kate's complexion goes from lime to Hass avocado: dark green and bumpylumpy. More and more bumpylumpy. Scaly, even. Where has that muzzle come from, with all those sharp teeth? To say nothing of the tail? No, we have to tell some kind of tale of the telltale tail, but not much.

Kate starts to say something else, presumably more about the magnificent wonderfulness of lime. What comes out, however, isn't exactly English. It isn't even approximately English. It's a bubbling shriek of about the volume you would use if you wanted to set Mount Everest running for an air-raid shelter.

What else comes out is a blast of fire. It's Kate's very first one, so it's not a
huge
blast of fire. But it's plenty to set several cardboard boxes burning, and it's plenty to make the giggle of bridesmaids stop giggling and start running. Running like hell, if, once more, you want to be precise.

The Bed, Bath and Beyond sales staff also opt for Beyond, and at top speed, too. Their customer-service training does not involve dealing with dinosaurian monsters, even ones that just stop in for soap.

Kate follows them out of the store. She hasn't fully figured out what's happened to her. Well, neither has anyone else but Professor Tesla Kidder, and he's off in another part of the narrative somewhere. She tries to complain. More bubbling shrieks come forth. So does more flame. Lots more flame. She's getting the hang of it.

When you are on fire, a man once said from agonizing personal experience, people get out of your way. And they get out of your way even faster when you breathe fire. Panic roars through the clothed mall-rats of Northridge.

“Run for your life!” a woman screams. “It really is Bridezilla!”

How can she tell? Simple. On the second digit of Kate's left forepaw (not the fourth, because the forepaw has only two digits once the genetic recodifying gets done) still sparkles Archie Kidder's two-carat rock.

And when people aren't running, they're aiming cell-phone cameras at Kate and zapping the stills and videos to every TV station and newspaper in town (lots of the former; not much left of the latter). Some of them even think to call the police, the fire department, and the SPCA.

Media frenzies have been built from less. From much less, to tell you the truth. Cars, vans, and all the helicopters not covering the latest freeway chase—say, about as many as the Brazilian Air Force owns—converge on the Northridge Mall. “Dinosaur runs amok!” a blow-dried airhead shouts breathlessly into his mike. “Details after this message!”

Before the impotence-drug commercial can even finish, Professor Tesla Kidder's cell phone blorps. Mm, how would you describe the noise a theremin makes? And what else would a mad scientist use for a ring tone?

“Yes?” he says.

“No,” his wife tells him firmly. “I don't know what you've done, but stop doing it. Undo it, if you can—and you'd better be able to.” She hangs up before he can get out even one more word.

And, before he can put the phone back in his pocket (no, not the pocket the mouse came from—mice gnaw on phones), it blorps again. Once more, he raises it to the side of his head. “Yes?”

“Dad!” Archie sounds reproachful, not firm. That may be even worse. “Fix it, will you please? Kate'll be fine as soon as the ceremony's over and the pressure's off. C'mon!”

So much for
Make sure they can't trace it back to you
. His family sure doesn't have any trouble. The police and fire department don't know him as well. Even so … How much damage can a real Bridezilla do in a mall? How expensive will that damage be? Tesla Kidder is a mad scientist, but he isn't a stupid scientist. No way, José.

His calculations take but a moment. “Oh, all right,” he says, and, if he sounds a trifle sulky, it's only because he is. Back into the pocket goes the phone.

He recalibrates the long-range genetic recodifier. The police don't call. The fire department doesn't, either. No one pounds on the laboratory door. (Remembering Moscow nights, even Moscow nights under
perestroika
and
glasnost
, Igor is relieved.) No reporters show up asking for comments. They're all too busy trying to sound blasé about this Mesozoic irruption into the bastion of modern American capitalism.

Prof Kidder pushes the button on his device again. No annoying extraneous beam of light this time. Tesla Kidder beams himself. He's fixed that, anyhow.

We return, then, to the mall to await developments. The Kateosaurus­ with the flashy engagement ring has just flamed a Cadillac­ Escalade in the parking lot. The SUV's fuel tank, a reservoir containing the essence of Lord knows how many dinosaurs, sends a column of greasy black smoke into the sky to mark their final return to the environment.

After a roar of triumph, the Creature from the Lime Soap Lagoon advances purposefully on a van even bigger than the Escalade (and they said it couldn't be done!). On the side of the van is blazoned EYEWITLESS­ NEWS. Another burbling roar. Another blast of flame. But—disappointingly, at least to Prof Kidder—only a small one. The news van gets scorched, but does not become as one with Nineveh and Tyre and the unmourned Escalade.

Kidder sighs. “I should have waited another minute or two. Oh, well.”

For Bridezilla is undergoing another transformation—another recodification, if you will. Not from real-estate whiz and investment banker's kid to fire-breathing monster, but the reverse. To Tesla Kidder, who is thinking about Archie, going this way may be the more frightening. With a fire-breathing monster, at least, you know ahead of time what you're getting. You don't have to find out later, the hard way.

In the Northridge parking lot, Kate—yes, she's Kate again—looks vaguely confused. She doesn't remember a whole lot of what just happened. As Bridezilla, she had a brain about the size of a walnut. Most MBA candidates come with a little more cranial capacity than that.

Most reporters? It's an open question. Anyone watching the subsequent interview between the TV guy and the recently ex-dinosaur would doubt that the intelligence level of the planet's dominant species has changed much over the past 65,000,000 years.

Professor Tesla Kidder puts the long-range genetic recodifier back on the shelf. Maybe he'll need it again one of these days. “Well, Igor,” he says, “what shall we work on next?”

Igor is still watching the aftermath of chaos on TV. Maybe staying in Moscow would have been better than this, or at least less wearing. But maybe not, too. That may be the scariest thought of all.

The wedding is a great success. If everything smells a bit too strongly of lime, well, you can live with lime. After the vows, before the minister tells Archie he may kiss the bride, he beats the guy to the punch. “Kiss me, Kate!” he says, and she does. If she doesn't quite grok why he's got that kind of smile on his face while he says it, you have to remember she's only someone who's finishing an MBA.

At the reception, Kate's mother comes up to Tesla Kidder, champagne flute in hand. “Hey, listen,” she says, “you didn't have anything to do with the, ah, unfortunate incident, didja?” That's what Kate's family—and their lawyers—have taken to calling the scaly, incendiary rampage through the mall.

“How could I possibly?” Professor Kidder answers. “I was in my laboratory the whole time. You can ask Igor, if you like. He was there with me.”

Actually, Kate's mom
can't
ask Igor right this second. He's out on the dance floor with Stacey (who smells, defiantly, of frangipani). Kate's mother nods, as if in wisdom. “Okay,” she says. “That's what I already heard, anyways.” You have to remember, she's only an investment banker. Mad scientists? They're right out of her league.

WE INSTALL

This one is my daughter Rebecca's fault. Living in sunny Southern California, we put up with visits from, among other people, solar-power-company salespeople hawking their outfits' products door-to-door. After I sent yet another one of them away without buying, I noticed that she was giggling.

“What's funny?” I asked.

“Didn't you hear what he said?” she answered. “He said, ‘We install solar systems.'”

I thought about that. “Oh.” I laughed, too, and went on, “Well, if I write the story, I'll give you a chunk of the check.” A few days later, I wrote it, and she did get a piece of what I got for it.

S
o the doorbell rings. So for a wonder it's twenty minutes before dinner, not during. So okay, I heave my butt out of the recliner and go to the door. There's a kind of dweeby-looking guy on my front porch. Khakis. Dark blue polo shirt with a company logo on the left breast. Plastic badge on a lanyard around his neck. Clipboard.

Not likely to be a home-invasion robber. Possible, sure, but not likely. So I open the door. “Yes?” I say.

“Hi.” He smiles almost like he means it. “My name's Eric.” He holds up his badge. The badge's name is Eric, anyway.

I nod. I say, “And?” I wait.

“I'm with Superior Solar.” He taps the logo on his chest. “We install solar systems, and we're going through your neighborhood now offering some very attractive discounts. Putting in a new solar system can save you some serious money, you know.”

When I open the door, I expect I'll listen to his spiel and go
We're not interested, thanks
. It's like there's a tape in my head. A salesman comes, I listen to his spiel, I go
We're not interested, thanks
, and I shut the door. Spiel runs long, I shut it before he finishes.

Only not today. I turn and I yell, “Debbie! Hey, Debbie!”

“What?” my wife yells from the kitchen. That's where the good smells come from. Twenty minutes till dinnertime, remember?

“There's a guy from Superior Solar on the porch.” When she's in the kitchen, she can't hardly hear the bell ring. “He says they got good deals on new solar systems.”

“Well, talk to him, for crying out loud,” she says. “The one that came with this place is old as the hills, and it's a piece of junk.”

She's right, no two ways about it. She is. That old solar system's given us nothing but trouble ever since we moved in here. And when she goes
talk to him
, that means we can finally afford to replace the miserable thing. Debbie minds the checkbook around here. Tell me it's not like that at your house, pal.

So okay, I say, “C'mon in, Eric. Let's talk abut these deals of yours.”

So he spreads his pictures and his price list out on the dining-room table. And right away I see a system I like. It's got good power, and the price looks okay to me. I call Debbie over to make sure I'm not getting us in too deep. She thinks for a minute. Then she says, “Yeah, we can swing that.”

“We
will
swing that,” I tell Eric. “How soon can you install it?”

“We've got a tech crew in the neighborhood,” he says. “We'll start tomorrow morning. If it's a straightforward job, we should be done by late afternoon. Any chance I can get up on your roof now so I can see what we'll have to do in the replacement process?”

I ask Debbie a question with my eyebrows. She goes, “I'll turn supper down.”

I lean the ladder against the side of the house. We both go up there (I check to see Eric's insured first). He's good and careful on the slope; it's not like he's never done this before. He steps over the oorts and kuipers out at the edge (smart—those little bastards'll freeze your ankles off if you give 'em half a chance) and bends down to take a look at the power unit in the center of the system.

He kinda grunts. “You could do with a new one, all right. This one here's gotta be close to 5X10E9.”

“I told you—this system was in place when we bought the house,” I say.

“They don't usually last past 1X10E10, not ones this size. They blow up on you, make all kinds of trouble. You're smart to replace while it's still kinda working.” Eric takes out a loupe and inspects the sixth wanderer. “What happened here? What's up with the ring?”

“A couple of the outliers smashed together a while ago and broke up. Didn't seem to hurt anything much, so I just left it alone.”

“Sloppy workmanship, though.” Eric switches to another loupe, one with a longer lens. “Same with this grit between Five and Four. We make 'em a lot better now, we really do. You'll like your new one. It's
clean
, man.”

“Cool,” I say. “Um, could you take a peek at Three? It's been kinda funny-like for a while.”

He does, with the strongest lens yet. He's frowning when he looks up. “Hate to tell you, but I think it's gone moldy.”

“I was afraid of that. Now I'm extra glad we're ripping this one out.”

“Yeah, that stuff can be nasty,” Eric agrees. “Sometimes it even spreads to systems up and down the block.” He writes on his clipboard. “Gotta make sure we sterilize it before we recycle.”

I nod. “Sounds like a plan.” He fiddles around up there while I get hungrier. So I say, “You want to have dinner with us? Debbie always makes plenty.”

That gets him moving. “No, thanks,” he says. “Still got more ground to cover today. Let's go down, shall we?” And we do.

I stow the ladder in the garage. We go into the house again. Debbie says, “I heard you guys clomping around up there. Everything all set?”

“Sure is,” Eric answers. “Good thing I went up. Wanderer Three's got mold on it, and it'll need steam cleaning before they can reuse it.”

“Ewww.” Debbie hates gross stuff. She asks, “No extra charge?” She hates that, too.

But he says, “Nah—comes with the install. The crew'll be here between nine and eleven tomorrow. It'll be kinda noisy, but not too bad. Look, here's my card.” He sets it on the table. “Any trouble at all, call me, hear? Now I'm gonna run. Thanks, folks.” And away Eric goes. He's got more solar systems to sell.