Very Castle Celebrations
Chapter 4
Castle opens his eyes in gleeful anticipation of the day. He's looking forward to it for two reasons. One is that it is the date when the cleverest of scams can be freely perpetrated, especially in the writing community. There is an unspoken competition to pen something that while total fiction or satire, is believable enough to garner responses as if it's real. He has every intention of crafting a masterpiece and launching it into the cybersphere.
The second reason is that it's his birthday. Growing up with the first of April as his natal day had often been nothing short of torture. His classmates had teased him about being the world's biggest joke. But now the joke was on them. The clever quips he'd learned to make in self-defense serve him well in his writing and his sense of humor is a potent shield against the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune.
He can't wait to see what Kate has in mind. She's never been above pulling a prank or two, and he is expecting her to come up with something spectacular for his birthday. It will be the first one they'll celebrate together since they got married. He's made himself scarce a few times within the last few days to give her time to plan. He'd also taken Jackson on a few very long walks, to give her a chance to develop her plot to take him by surprise. She should have had no problems putting a plan together.
He can hear the lively tune from Jackson's musical mobile coming from the nursery and detect the siren scent of coffee drifting in from the kitchen. A dark brew will make for a good start on the day.
Kate isn't in the kitchen, but Alexis is. She informs Castle that Kate said she had something to do that morning, but she'll be back before lunchtime. Grinning, Castle suggests that Kate is setting up some great surprise. Alexis stares at him wide-eyed, insisting that she has no idea what he's talking about but that now that he's up, he can take over making breakfast.
Castle's confused. Since she was five, Alexis has always had a tradition of making breakfast for him on his birthday, even if it was just cold cereal and a juice box. He shrugs and grunts, "Fine!"
The setting on the toaster is all wrong, and the toast is three shades too dark. Could Kate have changed it? Not very imaginative, and very disappointing. To make things worse, he has mixed up better – much better – pancake batter in his life, and he doesn't really feel like putting chocolate chip happy faces on the flapjacks. This day is not starting out at all the way he had hoped. At least he manages to make the bacon crisp, or as crisp as turkey bacon can get before becoming nitrate-riddled cardboard.
His article is not going much better than his culinary attempts did. He received alerts to several brilliant pieces, especially one by Alex Conrad, describing the remains of an ancient pygmy civilization unearthed in New Zealand. The kicker didn't come until the final paragraph which laid out how anthropologists had concluded that these particular pygmies had hairy feet and indulged in many meals throughout the day. Yes, of course, hobbits. Who else would be in New Zealand?
Castle is trying to be at least as creative as his protégé. He's writing a fictional treatise on the experimental work of a scientist who created a teleportation device based on quantum entanglement, but he keeps picturing his researcher as looking like Jeff Goldblum and wants to call him Seth Brundle. Talk about a lack of originality! Even the Goldblum version was based on an earlier movie with David Hedison and Vincent Price.
He needs something to spark his imagination. Maybe it's better that Kate will be gone for a few hours. The Children's Museum is open. He can take Jackson. Even if his son is a few years short of understanding anything he sees, Castle can help a baby finger push the buttons to make mechanical exhibits move, and static ones talk. Something may shake loose in his own sluggish brain.
The museum is almost empty. It's a Wednesday, and most New Yorkers are either at work or in school. Castle's a bit surprised that Alexis had the time to come to the loft to cover for Kate, although he knows that his daughter likes to schedule her classes in the afternoon. In that respect, she's more like her mother than her grandmother. She's rarely been a cheerful early riser - but then neither has he. As a father and when chasing after Kate at crime scenes, he just had to learn to put up with springing into action, even while mocking remnants of the sunrise still remain in the sky.
A new exhibit on robotics is open. It features a video about a humanoid robot named Pepper who responds to human emotions. Like most such devices, it was developed in Japan. With Jackson securely in his front carrier, Castle has his hands free to look up more information on his phone. Pepper is marketed to the public, at least in Japan, but sells out within minutes. Castle wonders if he can get on a list to snag one the next time there is a release.
Suddenly, he realizes that he has his story. His researcher won't go through his machine himself, with a grotesque outcome; he'll send a robot. Instead of teleporting through space, the mechanical boy will visit an alternate dimension and come back sentient. In the last line Castle will reveal that the alternate realm his changeling found was ruled by the Blue Fairy. He'll leave it up to his readers to figure out that the robot is Pinocchio. His tale will have some echoes of Data on Star Trek the Next Generation, but Castle can make his narrative convincing - at least until the punchline.
Re-energized, Castle brings Jackson backs to the loft and secures him in his infant seat beside his desk while he works. Kate isn't home yet, but that's OK. He's in the zone as his fingers fly over the keyboard. He publishes his piece on the web just as he hears Kate return, but she's not alone. He checks out what's going on in the living room.
As he watches, the room is being transformed by a group of twenty-somethings, some of whom he recognizes as students from his mother's acting school. Mother is there along with Alexis and Cary. Mother proclaims that they are about to present an exclusive performance of "Mightier than the Sword," the best of Castle's unproduced plays. He has no idea how mother got a copy, but he's sure Kate had something to do with it. His wife looks proud enough of herself.
Alexis ushers Castle to the place of honor in his favorite chair to watch the action. The play proceeds with Castle's protagonist uncovering a deadly plot to take over an unnamed and highly classified government agency. In the end, even though wounded himself, the hero manages to shoot a lethal projectile from a weapon that had been disguised as a fountain pen on his desk the whole time. The villain of the piece dies, calling for his baby blanket, the last scrap of which he always carried in his pocket. The room is filled with enthusiastic applause, but the actor playing the villain doesn't rise to take a bow. Kate rushes to him and feels his neck for a pulse. There is none.
A/N Pepper is real.