Stephen had handcuffed Eisenstone to the old-fashioned wheelchair and Clarice tugged Tim along by the scruff of his shirt. They approached the bookshelf in the corner of the study, the secret entrance to the lab. Across the room, Tim spotted Phil, poised on the desk, leaning from behind the antique lamp. True to his word, he held a set of keys in his tiny paws. Tim shrugged helplessly as they went through the passage behind the books, stepping over countless dead metal bees strung across the floor.
Once inside the cold, gloomy lab, Tim’s eyes locked on to his imagination box – it was intact on the side of one of the worktables, but his reader hat had been changed. They’d put wires in it and it was now attached to their reader.
‘Tim, come here,’ Clarice said, pulling him closer.
‘What are you doing?’ he asked, glancing up at their huge steel machine.
‘Not that it’s any of your business, but having inspected your imagination box, it seems hardware really is not our problem,’ Clarice said, fiddling with an exposed circuit board. ‘In fact, our device is perfect. The issue is software. The problem is our minds. Our imaginations. That’s why Professor Eisenstone couldn’t make his work either. Not until you showed up. Perhaps it’s because you’re a child. Perhaps you’re a genius. Who knows?’
Tim couldn’t help but feel a little bit proud again – he liked being the only one able to make the invention work, even if he didn’t fully understand why. ‘But what have you done with my reader?’ he asked.
‘We’ve wired it up to ours. Two readers, one atomic constructor— Imagination box. Now the only thing left to do is to use your head to make it work.’ Clarice leant forwards, ‘Then I’ll know for sure if mine is built correctly.’
Clarice stepped back and begun untangling the cables connecting the readers.
‘Wait,’ Tim said. ‘So you’re going to get me to imagine things for you?’
‘No,’ she sighed, as though he was being stupid. ‘I’m going to imagine something, then my reader is going to send that thought into your brain, then into my box. We’re using you as a signal transmitter, nothing more.’
‘Well, no. I refuse,’ he said, with a shrug.
‘You know what, Tim,’ she whispered, ‘I was sort of hoping you’d say that. Stephen!’ she yelled.
Her son flicked a switch and the other end of the large laboratory lit up, a bright white beam throwing shadows across the floor. Tim saw the teleporter, the two tall chambers. In the left hand one was a person – she was frowning behind the glass.
‘Dee,’ Eisenstone shouted. ‘No!’
‘Now,’ Clarice said, picking up a small control panel. ‘I press this button and it’s bye bye. Poof. Gone. So why not just do exactly as I say, yeah?’
‘Why?’ Tim said, looking over to Dee, who silently tutted, rolling her eyes inside. ‘Why are you doing this?’
‘Why?!’ Clarice narrowed her eyes, as though she was insulted by the question. ‘Do you know who I am?’
Tim shook his head. ‘Haven’t a clue.’
‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘I was going to be the prime minister one day. That’s what they said. I was on my way up. Can you imagine what it feels like to have everyone know your name, to be voted in by the people, to represent all the residents of Glassbridge, your neighbours, your friends, your family – only to then disappear, to become a nobody?’ She turned to Stephen. ‘To have your career cruelly curtailed by a screaming, whining little baby?’
‘So you’re going to pretend you invented the imagination box?’
‘Pretend?’ she laughed. ‘Look at what I’ve achieved. This is real. My name will go down in history.’
‘OK … I think I get it. Your methods are a little iffy, morally,’ Tim said. ‘But I get it.’
‘Oh, young man, judge me by my results.’
‘And, plus, I don’t know that much about politics,’ he said, lifting an eyebrow. ‘But I was under the impression there were easier ways of gaining some popularity?’
‘You’d think so, wouldn’t you?’ she said. ‘You’d think your dear husband wouldn’t be completely helpless, useless, unable to make anything work.’
‘Bernard Whitelock,’ Eisenstone said, his head hanging, tears brewing, utterly defeated. ‘You married my best friend and then you killed him. All for what? For this? To get his technology, to exploit him for his inventions?’
‘Oh, but you’ve got it so … so wrong. He wasn’t your friend, remember, not after what you did … And, besides, I didn’t kill him – just the opposite. I gave him everything he needed … Isn’t that right, Bernie?’
Eisenstone’s gaze slowly lifted as a figure stepped from the side of their huge imagination box. Tim recognised the old man from the photo he’d seen – hunched, his eyes flashing in the darkness.
‘Bernard … but … you’re …’ The professor’s voice was shuddering, as though they were looking at a ghost.
Perhaps they were, Tim thought, as Professor Whitelock limped towards them, alive in the shadows.