Howard Witzer began work on his invention at a relaxed pace. The bulk of his efforts, such as they were, was jotting down product requirements on a small notepad he kept with him wherever he went. These were not technical specifications but rather a list of adjectives he expected the news media to use when it came time for them to report on his magnificent creation."Unstoppable," he scribbled while waiting in his car for the fat lady in the crosswalk to inch along past in her power chair. "Merciless," he wrote when stuck in the supermarket "12 items or less" line behind some guy who was not only purchasing twice that many but insisted on checking that what was on the price tag matched what was on the receipt for every one of them.
Howard would have continued with this strategy indefinitely had it not been for the advent of a disturbing and recurring dream. In it he was at the controls atop his invention, which looked almost exactly like the photo of an icebreaker he found on Wikipedia except that it had been outfitted with wheels and was scaled down to about the size of a school bus. There was a crowd assembled down the street. When ordered to disperse, they stood their ground and began to sing "Free To Be You and Me." Howard accelerated and drove his creation straight into them. After the sound of breaking bones upon initial impact, he started to rock violently back and forth as those not panicked or dead grabbed the front and sides of the vehicle and tried to overturn it. Howard got thrown from his invention and pinned underneath it. He woke up screaming while being kicked to death by Birkenstocks as angry voices screamed at him to "mellow out."
After experiencing this nightmare a number of times, he started paying attention to what it was trying to tell him. Maybe he put off worrying about press coverage until he was confident he could build a contraption that would actually work.
Howard reasoned that what made an icebreaker break ice so effectively was the downward smashing blow of the bow caused by the motion of the ocean waves. He didn't go verify this through any research or stop to consider that one is not liable to experience a lot of wave motion when surrounded by ice on all sides. His level of certainty was beyond such mundane considerations.
What he needed was a land vehicle capable of the same kind of destructive force. To come up with a solution, he turned his attention once more to the world of boats. He thought of the landing craft of D-Day, in particular how they opened at the bow and the ramp would slam down into the shallow water just shy of dry land.
Howard figured that if these vessels had wheels and could drive right up on the beach and beyond, their giant steel fly swatters could be used to flatten Germans, hedgerows, and anything else that got in their way. Paris would have been liberated by July 4 and the war would be over by Halloween. In hindsight, it was clear that Dwight Eisenhower was no Howard Witzer.
His invention would be much simpler since there was no requirement that it be able to travel in water. All that was required was a sturdy vehicle with plenty of horsepower that had its front end accessorized to deliver what he called the "D-Day Smackdown." He set about the task of creating a prototype that was both fully functional and small enough to demonstrate in the comfort and privacy of his own home.
With this in mind, the design and creation of a prototype was a pretty simple affair. So after a few short weeks, Howard reached the moment where he was able to stand with his arms crossed and look down at what he created with a profound sense of satisfaction. Here was a machine that was capable of dealing some real death, albeit to a miniaturized world.
He figured the next step would be to put his invention through a test exercise witness by a friend he could trust. Unfortunately, there were no such people in Howard's life. That left Clyde, who may or may not have been trustworthy but could be counted on to be too appalled by Howard's creation to steal the idea and build one of his own.
Clyde had one other quality that made him a suitable choice. His job was to make sure the staff had network access to the servers, both from the office and remotely, and was on call 24/7. To make it possible for Clyde to enjoy something resembling a normal life, people were discouraged from calling him between the hours of 10 at night and six in the morning unless it couldn't wait. Howard had no qualms about calling him at 3:30 am clearly could not wait. So what if it wasn't work-related.
He showed up at Howard's from door within the hour, expecting to reattach a loose cable or reconfigure a VPN. What did not expect was to greeted at the door by his coworker wearing an army helmet and aviator sunglasses.
"Clyde, I never liked you," Howard said. "Be that as it may, I believe in credit where it's due. And Clyde, you gave me the inspiration to create a machine that will revolutionize law enforcement. Come with me."
Clyde mumbled something about being gotten out of bed on false pretenses and followed the helmeted man across the cluttered living room, down the hall, and into the kitchen.
"What you see here symbolizes what is wrong with the world," Howard said.
Clyde stared at the dirty dishes piled up in the sink.
"No, not that, this," Howard said, pointing to a cluster of pink baby mice in the corner of the room. "I have a little problem with rodents so I borrowed some offspring from their vermin mother for tonight's demonstration."
Clyde rubbed his eyes and looked at the infant animals, who wriggled and squeaked and whose eyes had not yet opened.
"Oh, they're kind of cute," he said, stifling a yawn.
"No," said Howard. "They're not cute, not cute at all. They obstructing traffic and think they have the right to do that because they are protesting. Look at those picket signs."
Indeed, a few of the mice had toothpicks taped to their bodies with pieces of paper attached to them displaying the messages "USA Bad," "Pot Now," and "End God." Howard cupped his hand over his mouth and spoke to the rodents as if through a megaphone.
"This is an illegal gathering," he said. "You are hereby ordered to leave the vicinity immediately or face the consequences."
The mice squirmed a little but otherwise did not budge.
"You can't say I didn't warn them," Howard said to Clyde. "Anyway, this is where the fun begins. I've never tested this before so it's going to be exciting for both of us."
He reached into a drawer under the counter, pulled out a remote control, and extended its antenna. He switched it on and pushed forward the small joystick on top. There was a whirring noise and a toy pickup truck came out of the cupboard and across the kitchen floor.
Howard went on to talk about why there was a rat trap attached to the front of the little vehicle and why the wooden base of it was facing outward. He explained that when the trap was triggered by the button on his remote, the swinging metal bar might kill a couple of the baby rodents but the base slamming down would have sufficient surface area to get them all.
"Behold the Micebreaker," he said.
Clyde was awake enough at this point to voice his displeasure. He called Howard a number of uncharitable names (most preceded by the adjective "sick") and demanded that he put down the remote control immediately. Howard's attempt to justify himself by pointing out how animals also had be sacrificed in the fight against polio failed to impress his coworker. Clyde made an abortive attempt to physically take the remote from him but stopped in his tracks when Howard, a larger man, bared his teeth in such a way that showed both a propensity for violence and a disdain for dental floss.
So instead, Clyde snarled on last insult and left. Howard shrugged, telling himself that in the long run, Clyde's rude departure would do nothing to sully this glorious night.
It turned out that his prediction was not entirely true. As he rolled the vehicle toward the mice, Clyde's slamming of the front door startled Howard just enough for him to hit the button triggering the trap prematurely. The wooden base came slamming down and hit the floor just shy of the rodents, producing an equal and opposite reaction of sufficient force to flip the toy truck over backward, leaving it upside down and helpless.
Up to now, Howard had not considered the possibility of failure but now he could think of nothing else. His head was filled with the equally unattractive prospects of starting over or giving up entirely. He couldn't even hear Clyde starting his car and driving away. The only sensory input that registered was the sight of upended tires trying to gain purchase on thin air and the sound of defiant squeaks from unharmed baby mice.
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