Eddie Fantastic by Heimerdinger Chris

Author:Heimerdinger, Chris [Heimerdinger, Chris]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Literature & Fiction, Action & Adventure, Contemporary
ISBN: 1555034039
Amazon: B00541XWCI
Publisher: Covenant Communications
Published: 2011-06-02T06:00:00+00:00

9

Eddie accompanied the old inventor down into his cellar. Before Louis had climbed into his self-designed hydraulic wheelchair lift and switched on the overhead lights, Eddie took a moment to absorb the resplendent harmony of glimmers and shadows, cogs and belts. He listened to the eternal droning of the generator in the center of the basement and studied the flash of sparks from an unknown apparatus in a distant corner. As the lights came on, it did nothing to diminish the place’s mysteriousness. There were nooks and crannies in this maze whose wonders he hadn’t even begun to fathom. Again, the cellar made him think of Frankenstein’s laboratory. Only in this lab, thought Eddie, Frankenstein and the so-called monster are one and the same.

He swallowed hard. Had he forgotten so soon that his thoughts could be heard? Embarrassed, he turned toward Louis, whose electric chair was moving toward him down the rail.

“Interesting observation,” he responded abrasively, administering a few drops from his ever-present eyedropper. “But this laboratory did not create me. I created it.”

“Sorry,” said Eddie meekly.

Louis ignored him and rode his chair toward the row of cabinets where Eddie and Louis had first met—the place where Eddie had discovered the jacket. As Eddie followed, Louis pointed into his right ear and said, “Look closely.”

Eddie leaned in. Inside the cavity of the mangled ear was a pea-sized object—hardly noticeable—flesh-colored and shaped somewhat like a lopsided bell.

“Is it a hearing aid?” Eddie wondered.

“It’s a receiver,” said Louis. “Surely the most sophisticated receiver you’ve ever encountered. No one has ever engineered such a high-quality and compact unit. It’s possible that no one ever will.”

“Is that how you listen to my thoughts?”

“I said it’s a receiver!” he responded impatiently. “The translator-recorder is the ‘reading’ mechanism. It registers the synaptic impulses of the mind—those little electrical sparks that fire a million signals every second—and translates them into an audible dialect. English, in your case. We all think in our own language, after all.”

Eddie’s face illuminated. “Sure. The Uniglottal Neurological Translator. I read that name before.” He searched until he found the title on the second cabinet from the end.

“That’s the portable unit,” said Louis. “The transmitter attuned to the receiver in my ear is permanently connected to a larger apparatus, and it has a much wider range. Three quarters of a mile. The portable unit is useless beyond seventy-five yards. I recorded the electrowave discharges, or ‘frequency’ of your brain, the night you were attacked in front of my gate. It took a certain amount of effort to separate your particular synaptic pattern from those around you. But after I had done so, I fed the information into the Translator.”

Eddie was stunned. “You mean you’ve been listening to my thoughts for two months?” He felt strangely exploited.

“Since we met, I’ve listened only when you were under my roof. It is my property, after all. I have a right to know what my guests are thinking.”

“Not when they don’t know it,” Eddie protested. “And what about before we met? You told me once that no human mind could be kept secret from you.

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