Mayhew’s Multiplication Device

By C Lenz

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Sweat gleamed amber on the tumbler of scotch, a drop splashing onto the mahogany bar next to a hopelessly lost ant. I brushed the creature away. “You’ll have to start charging them for membership,” I told the barman Davies. “There’s more of them than there are of us.”

“There are other pests I’m worried about,” Davies replied. He cast his gaze past me to the oak double doors, bursting open.

“Gentlemen, I’ve done it!” the voice of Mayhew announced.

The only response from the dim clubhouse was the clatter of billiard balls, immediately muffled by the fading books lining every wall. “I suppose I have stripes,” Taylor said to his opponent, Williams, before setting up for his next shot.

Mayhew plopped a hard leather case onto one of the tables. Davies winced, no doubt worried the bag would further mar the already scratched wood, but the various members of Boodle’s Gentlemen’s Club dotted throughout the room didn’t trouble themselves. Unlike other social clubs, one didn’t come to Boodle’s to network. Quite the opposite. None of us wanted to compare notes on our relative standing. Only Mayhew still had delusions of reclaiming his reputation.

“I’ve finally done it!” Mayhew continued, as if he had the attention of an enraptured audience.

“Done what, spent the last of the family fortune?” Taylor drawled before sending the white cue ball clattering through clustered ivory.

“I’ll have you know, I’ve completed my latest invention,” Mayhew replied icily, before drawing something out of the case with a flourish. No sooner was it in his hand than his triumphant air was restored. “Behold! My multiplication device!”

A few of us watched dispassionately, although Gresham didn’t bother to glance up from his food. The object had the general size and shape of a gun, but none of the cast, all cheerful bulbous glass and warm shining copper. Its soft leather grip was molded perfectly to its owner’s hand.

“Multiplication device?” I asked. “Is it a calculating machine, like Babbage’s Difference Engine?”

Mayhew scoffed. “Nothing so trivial. Babbage’s so-called computer is useful for checking figures, but little more.”

“What does it multiply, if not numbers?” Williams asked.

“I’ll show you.”

Mayhew snatched Gresham’s plate of cod and bread out from under his fork. Before Gresham could protest, Mayhew had aimed the device at the plate and pulled the trigger. A whirligig shone as it spun in a glass globe. Sparks of electricity flashed through the tubing. Gresham’s meal seemed to stretch until it snapped, leaving a second plate next to the first. The contraption in Mayhew’s hand kept humming, and soon the second plate had popped into a third, and then a fourth. A ring of identical meals appeared along the edge of the table, as if deposited by a prompt but invisible waiter, and then spiraled into the middle, finally forming a swaying tower of china and food scraps.

“My word!” Williams gasped.

“Impressive,” Taylor said, leaning on his pool cue. “How’s the trick done?”

Gresham jabbed his fork onto the nearest plate, seizing a morsel. “Food’s real,” he said through the mouthful.

“Of course it’s real,” Mayhew snapped. “It works.”

“Will it work on anything we give you?” Taylor asked slyly. “Say,” he cast his eyes around the room before plucking his wine glass from the edge of the billiards table, “This?”

“First loaves and fishes, then wine?” I asked. “How godly.”

With a grin, Mayhew twisted a knob and then aimed the device at Taylor’s hand. He pulled the trigger. The wine bubbled, thick red drops leaping from the glass and then gushing over the gold rim and onto Taylor’s sleeve. Taylor yelped and jumped back. Red wine splashed to the thick carpet.

“Oi!” Davies yelled from behind the bar.

“Apologies, Davies,” Mayhew chuckled, striding forward. “Perhaps we can come to some sort of arrangement? I can’t produce wine from water, but I can make it nearly as abundant.”

“Don’t blaspheme in my establishment,” Davies told him. “I might remind you that God can also unleash plagues. Best not to tempt the Almighty.”

This provoked a round of titters from the enlightened men of the room.

“No, no,” Mayhew chided. “Davies has a right to his fear. After all, if the bottles on his shelf were as common as those in a public house, how could he justify his membership dues?”

“Most of them nearly are,” Taylor pointed out.

“Allow me to fix that,” Mayhew said, taking aim. I followed the muzzle of his multiplication device to a rare, expensive bottle of scotch, dusty and untouched, perched several shelves above what I drank. A little waggle of movement caught my eye. Not a drizzle of condensation, but the waving antenna of an ant.

“Mayhew!” I cried. “Don’t!”

But he was already pulling the trigger. The shot struck the insect directly. Its miniscule body must have been easy for the machine to duplicate, as the tiny speck welled into a glistening, writhing black mass. It poured like oil from the shelf, the newly made colony cascading to the floor, flooding the area behind the bar.

“For God’s sake, turn it off!” Davies screamed, staggering back, kicking the ants from his shoes.

“It’s stuck!” Mayhew cried in response, prying at the trigger. He threw the contraption to the ground in frustration. Its components kept merrily spinning and sparking.

Davies fled from behind the bar, slapping at the insects with a dishrag. Like the bubbling wine, the ants welled up, surging onto the mahogany. They spilled over the edge of the bar, tumbling to the floor and surging across the carpet, a creeping, living, growing stain.

All of us made for the door. We bolted outside, slamming the thick oak shut behind us and barring it.

“When will it stop?” Davies demanded.

“Knowing Mayhew’s inventions,” Taylor said, “It never should have started.”

Like grease escaping from a piston, thin black streams leaked from the bottom of the door. “Unfortunately,” I said, “Mayhew’s finally made something that works.”

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C Lenz is a writer, scientist, and odd little thing. She has been previously published in AE: the Canadian Science Fiction Review, Metaphorosis, Flashpoint Science Fiction, and was an honorable mention in the 2023 Hamilton GritLit Short Story Competition. More of her work can be found here: https://linktr.ee/sealenz. She lives in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada with her wife, Lilith.

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