Chuck's first idea was for Meg was the creation of a pneumatic crossbow he called the Scorpion, which he began the next afternoon. It was a beautiful day, and he was alone in the treehouse save for Monster, who rested on his bed in the corner.

“What do you think we should build, Monster?” Chuck asked the dog. Sometimes, when they were alone, Chuck pretended that Monster spoke with him, a holdover from a time before Meg when the dog was his only friend. Chuck imagined that his dog possessed a low, dopy voice, as if the fluff on the top of his thick head somehow grew from his brain. He talked with Monster about all kinds of things: school, inventions, how Monster felt about getting neutered.

“We should build auto-injecting arrowheads,” Monster said, licking his crotch. “We will call it the Arrow Injection Delivery System.”

“AIDS,” Chuck said, tapping a pencil against his lips. “That won’t work. You’re not so great with names, Monster. Maybe… maybe the Injektor. That sounds like something Batman might use.”

“Remember that part in Sir Walter Raleigh’s 1596 book Discovery of the Large, Rich, and Beautiful Empire of Guiana where Raleigh talks about the poison known as curare?” Monster asked. “We should build Meg an auto-injecting arrowhead to go along with the Scorpion so she can deliver curare directly into someone’s bloodstream.”

“But maybe it shouldn’t be for injecting poison,” Chuck said. “I like the concept, but I’m not comfortable killing anyone. Meg isn’t, either. She just incapacitates them. That’s why she uses a slingshot.”

Monster sighed. “Fine,” he said. “But at least create the auto-injecting arrowhead. Maybe she’ll need to deliver some denaturing chemicals to a barrel of pseudoephedrine.”

“Interesting,” Chuck said. “Because… yes. If we denature the pseudoephedrine, we render the thing completely useless. Someone wouldn’t be able to use it to cook meth. It could be useful.” He bent over the blank piece of paper on his work table and began to sketch out a rough draft of the schematics.

“We might need the auto-injecting tips,” Monster said. He began to whine. “They’re a great idea. Please make them, Chuck? Please? Please?” He sat down and cocked his head to the side, pricking up his ears and staring at Chuck with his large, soulful eyes. “Please?” he said. “Pretty please? Please? Please?”

“Stop,” Chuck said, giving his dog a warning look. Monster licked his lips. Chuck laughed and reached into the top drawer of his desk for a Milk-Bone. “I’m making them,” he said. “But I better not see you trying to get your hands on curare. You don’t have opposable thumbs. It could be dangerous. Shake.”

Monster held out a paw. “Deal,” he said.

They shook on it.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

A month later, Chuck delivered the weapon to Meg. He smiled at the look of joy on her face. He knew it worked perfectly because he'd tested it himself. The cockroach climbing up his treehouse wall hadn't stood a chance.

Now, it was Meg's turn to try the weapon. She carried it across the lawn, then stood with her feet apart and aimed at the cans Chuck had set up on a log near the base of the treehouse.

"You'll want to line up... oh, okay, you're not listening. You're just going with trial and error."

Meg closed one eye as she lined up her shot, the tip of her tongue peeking from between her front teeth. Thwack! She sent a bolt from the Scorpion into the first can. She took a few steps back and fired again. Thwack! The arrow thudded into a second can.

“This thing practically shoots itself,” she said, lowering the crossbow and jogging back to where Chuck was standing, a black duffel bag at his feet. “This thing is great. You built this in a month?”

“Twenty-seven days, technically,” Chuck said, dusting some dirt from his shoulder. “I built everything in the bag but the camera.”

Meg reached into the duffle and picked out the camera. The small black cube fit easily in her palm. “How much was it?” she asked.

“You can’t put a price on good social media,” Chuck said. “If you’re going to shoot a sex offender with a crossbow bolt, the world wants to see you do it.”

Meg wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know,” she said, turning the camera over. “I don’t know how to manage any social media. I don’t even have a TikTok.”

Chuck snatched the camera from her hands. “This is the on button,” he said, pointing to the single silver button on the camera’s top. “Before you start laying down the law, you press that button. That’s it. That's all you have to worry about. And make sure you wear the new mask. I’ll do the rest.”

“All right,” Meg said. “And the strap that's here…?”

Chuck helped her adjust the included elastic strap so that the camera fit against her chest. "Just like that," he said.

Meg nodded and reached back into the duffel bag, this time coming out with a small box made of green metal. "What's this?"

She held it out to him. "That's the Big Bang," Chuck said. “A grenade of my own devising. Just light here,” he pointed to the fuse that jutted from the top, “and you’ve got about seven seconds to get as far away as possible. I put some earmuffs on Monster and we threw it into Catskill Pond—it erupted like a volcano. All these dead fish rained down on us. Monster ate one. My ears were ringing for hours.”

“Whoa,” Meg said.

“Getting the magnesium and the aluminum for the metal oxidant mix weren’t a problem, but for the oxidizer I needed ammonium percholate, and where are you going to find that?”

“That’s a rhetorical question?” Meg asked.

“You could produce it from ammonia and perchloric acid, if you can get your hands on perchloric acid. And that’s a big if. But I went down to Chemical Supply and told them that I was trying to build a model rocket. This guy who works there, Jim, is an amateur rocket enthusiast. He couldn’t give me the chemicals fast enough.”

“I can see where this would come in handy,” Meg said, placing the Big Bang back in the duffle. “And this…?” She lifted out a canister that looked like a can of shaving cream.

“Mean Screen,” Chuck said. “Creates a blanket of smoke coverage for about twenty yards. I tried it in the woods and couldn’t see my hand a foot in front of my face.”

“You, sir, are a genius,” Meg said. She leaned forward and he thought she would hug him, but she kissed him on the cheek. This close, he could smell her coconut shampoo and the sweetness of her sweat.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said, hoisting Scorpion as she turned. “Got to get my social media manager some footage.”