Excerpt: Brainstorm

The phone sounded out in the kitchen, its musical ring catching the attention of both occupants. Grandma Tracy and Kyrano, in the midst of lunch preparations, glanced at it, then at each other.
 
“I will answer,” Kyrano said, putting his knife down next to the cutting board.
 
“Thank you, Kyrano,” Grandma said, smiling slightly. She pulled her hands out of the large bowl where she had been kneading bread dough. “My hands are a bit messy at the moment.”
 
Kyrano returned the smile, and stopped long enough to wash his hands before answering the call. The person on the other end had specified voice and picture, but Kyrano countered that with just voice on his end. “Tracy residence.”
 
The image of a woman, dark haired and dark-skinned, obviously past middle age, but not yet old, appeared in the telephone's round screen. “Hello?” she asked, her accent mixing both England and France in almost equal measure. “Is this the residence of Jefferson Tracy?”
 
Others might have been irked by the question, but Kyrano was patience itself. “Yes, it is. Who is calling?”
 
The woman seemed to relax a touch. “My name is Cerise Amédée. Dr. Cerise Amédée. I am looking for my son.”
 
Kyrano shot a troubled look at Grandma Tracy, who shrugged slightly. “I fear there is no one here with the name Amédée...”
 
“Oh, that is not his surname!” The woman exclaimed, looking agitated. “His surname is Newton. Homer Newton III.”
 
“Still, madame, there is...”
 
“Ah, I see,” Dr. Amédée interrupted. “Perhaps you would know him better as... Brains?”
 
“Oh!” Kyrano exclaimed. “Yes. I do know of whom you speak. If you will wait a moment, I will connect you with him.”
 
“Oh, thank you so much!” Dr. Amédée sounded relieved. “I will wait.”
 
Kyrano put the woman's call on hold, and pressed three buttons. As they waited for an answer from the lab, Grandma Tracy shook her head. “Lands sake! I don't know if I've ever heard that boy's proper name before, though I can full well see why he would like to keep it to himself.”
 
“Indeed,” Kyrano said, nodding gravely. He glanced back at the phone, which continued to ring. “Perhaps I should use the wrist communicator...”
 
Grandma shook her head. “He's probably all wrapped up in his latest project. Just let it ring a bit more. We didn't put an extra loud ringer and a flashing light down there for nothing.”
 
Deep in the bowels of the island, Brains sat before a work table in his laboratory. He peered through a high something magnifier, a light on the other side brightly illuminating the parts he was working on. “Almost done.”
 
A beeping sounded in the lab, and the lights began to blink rapidly. Tin-Tin Kyrano, Brains's assistant, waited a moment to see if her lab partner noticed the signal, but it was obvious he was so thoroughly wrapped up in his work that it didn't really register at all. She shook her head, and moved to the phone. After a moment or two of speaking with her father, she approached Brains, and waited until he had moved his tool from the tiny circuit board he was working on before touching him on the shoulder. She was glad she had waited; the bespectacled engineer jumped, startled.
 
“Tin-Tin! You gave me, uh, quite the fr-fright!”
 
“I'm sorry, Brains,” she said, her tone contrite. She motioned with a hand toward the phone. “Someone is calling you.”
 
“Oh!” He went back to the board. “Please h-have your, uh, father take a message for me. I'll r-ring them back, uh, later.”
 
Tin-Tin shook her head, and firmly took the tool from Brains's grasp. “No, Brains. My father tells me it is a very important person, and a long distance call. You should speak to them, now.” Her cheeks dimpled slightly as she smiled and added, “You know you will only forget...”
 
Brains took a deep breath in through his nose, and let it out noisily. “Oh, all right.” He alighted from his stool and sauntered over to the phone. “I'm h-here, Kyrano.” There was a moment's pause, and Tin-Tin listened as Brains said, “H-Hello?”
 
There was a longer pause, and Tin-Tin watched as Brains's jaw dropped in surprise at the picture which appeared on the screen. Kyrano had forwarded the call as he had received it, voice and picture, and Brains fumbled for the button that would transmit his image to his caller. In a voice full of awe and sheer disbelief, he uttered one word, a word that made Tin-Tin every bit as shocked as Brains was himself.
 
“Mother?”