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“Settle down, kid,” said Eda, wrapping electrodes around Beaker’s forehead. “Won’t hurt a bit. Would I lie to you?”
“Mmm hmm,” Beaker said, nodding frantically.
Eda threw an arm around him. “Relax, you’re being a buzzkill. If this experiment works, we’ll both be hitching a ride on the gravy train to easy street. Or…however that goes. There’s definitely a fancy train involved.”
Beaker whimpered. Eda decided to take this as consent.
“Let me just check my instruction manual,” she said, patting a thick, dusty phrenology textbook. At her touch, half the pages disintegrated. Eda rolled her eyes. “Don’t be a quitter,” she told the book as she squinted at the remaining pages. “This doesn’t make a lick of sense.” She raised her voice. “Hey! You! You sold me a knockoff mad science textbook!”
Count Olaf, who was disguised in a fake mustache and an elaborate magician’s costume, regarded her coldly from his roadside book selling stand. “What a ludicrous accusation,” he said. “My products are of the highest quality, ma’am.”
“Sure,” said Eda. Under her breath, she added, “Almost think those weird orphans were right about you.” She straightened Beaker’s haphazard crown of electrodes. “Oh well! It could be entertaining, at least.”
As Beaker screamed one final, desperate scream of pure anguish and terror, Eda threw a large switch, powering her contraption.
A blinding flash of light filled the room, causing both Eda and Olaf to cover their eyes. When they lowered their hands, blinking owlishly (and Olafishly), they saw Beaker.
Or, they saw a thing that looked like Beaker.
Except it was grubby and fuzzy and green and black and grey. And some of it looked wet. And some of it bristled.
Eda turned and shot Olaf a frosty glare. “Mold,” she stated drily. “He’s turned… into mold. With an M. Mold. …You absolute phony, you tricked me—!“ Her voice rose in a screech.
Olaf, seeing the urgency of the situation, and knowing that the cause of the problem at hand directly related to his lies, decided to try lying.
“Well,” he said, “of course. You need to flip the switch again.”
Eda calmed. “Oh, well, if that was all,” she said, turning back to the machine. “Yeah, stuff like this sometimes takes a few tries. You should have seen what a disaster the—“ She pulled the switch, forgetting about the blinding flash of light. Olaf, having also forgotten, ducked behind his roadside stand. Passers-by, previously unaware of the ocular dangers posed by this little display, started passer-bying faster.
The light faded.
Eda squinted. Everything was prodigiously blurry, but at least Beaker was back to normal. Beaker was also normal. Wait. What?
She rubbed her eyes and shook her head. By the Titan, there were two Beakers standing before her. Normal Beakers, not mold Beakers, so at least that was an improvement. Improvement is a word which here means a material chance of circumstance which is in some way comparatively better for some party involved; for instance, not being mold. No shady magician in sight.
Eda, luckily, had genre-savvy witch powers, and knew exactly what was going on. "All right, you two." She put her hands on her hips. "Which one of you is the real Beaker?"
"Me," said Beaker. Beaker also said "me."
"Very well. You've left me no choice. Beaker! Tell me something that only Beaker would know."
Beaker said, "The melting point of uranium is 340°C, which I know because my tibia is made of uranium."
"You liar!" Cried Beaker. "I am Beaker, because I know that bananas can be left underfoot, where they can be hazardous to your health."
"Hmm," said Eda. "On second thought, I can't verify either of those." A look crossed her face. "Hey hey hey. Entirely unrelated, who wants to help me with an unethical and dangerous experiment?"
One Beaker looked resigned. The other exclaimed, "Absolutely! I'll find some children for us to endanger."
"Aha!" quoth Eda. "I've got you now."
"Tarnation!" Count Olaf cried. "We're made!"
He tried to flee, but tripped and knocked himself out cold. Now Eda could finally get around to her experiment.