Finally, after an hour, Dave came upstairs and told them he was finished. They quickly bolted downstairs and instantly saw their TV displaying a live overhead image of their front lawn, with the house on the left and the street on the right. The lawn itself appeared to be sectioned in squares on a 9X5 grid.
In front of the TV, sitting on a table, was Dave's laptop. To the far left of the screen there was a picture of Peashooter and right below it was a picture of Sunflower. In the direct center was a grid very similar to the one shown on the TV. On the top left corner there was a box with the number '150' in it. It all looked rather interesting.
Finally, also on the table, was Peashooter and Sunflower sitting in flowerpots that looked slightly different than before. These pots had giant red flashing buttons right in front of it.
"Alrighty," Dave told them. "Here's how all this works. Remember that red light I put in the living room?" They all nodded in response.
"Well, I placed one in every room in the house," he continued. "It's a special alarm that activates when zombies are approaching the house. When that alarm goes off, I expect all of us to head to the basement ASAP." He then pointed at the television.
"This is your lawn. As you can see, it's divided up into squares. Each square is big enough to hold only one plant. Now, since you can see your lawn clearly, you can quickly know where to place your plants."
"Makes sense," Alex said, "but how do you plan to plant multiples of the same plant?" Dave just smiled.
"I was getting to that," he replied and then pointed at the plants. "As you can see, these new pots have a button on them. Pressing that button activates a unique microchip already installed on my laptop. The chip then adds that plant's DNA to your inventory shown here on the screen." He then pointed to the pictures of Sunflower and Peashooter on the laptop.
"Here's where the cool part comes in," he continued. "You technically aren't planting the actual plants, but rather clone versions of them!"
"Clones?!" asked Josie. "That's even possible?"
"Hey, why not?" Dave replied. "So anyway, to plant a plant, you simply click on its picture on the inventory. You then simply click on the square on the lawn you wanna place it using the laptop! Observe." He then clicked on the picture of Peashooter. Then he placed the mouse over the middle row, second column from the left.
"Watch the TV," he commanded, and with that, clicked the mouse. Instantly, a Peashooter popped out of the ground in the same spot on the laptop!
"Wow!" gasped Freddy in amazement. "This is actually easier than I thought it would be!"
"Hold on there, boy!" Dave told him. "There's one important thing you need to keep in mind, and that's your sunawatt count!" He then pointed at the box with the '150' in it, but now it read '50'.
"100 sunawatts were spent to plant that Peashooter," Dave explained. "It takes 50 sunawatts to plant a Sunflower, so right now we're good." He then turned to Alex. "Go ahead. Try it!"
Alex then proceeded to walk up to the laptop and click on Sunflower's photo. He then placed the mouse in the middle row, far left column, so that it was directly behind the Peashooter. Then, he clicked the mouse and turned to the screen. Sure enough, a Sunflower popped out of the ground right where he had clicked!
"Now, it takes about 10 seconds as well for Sunflower to spit out sunawatts," Dave continued, "but like I told you, if you have a lot of Sunflowers at once, it shouldn't be a big deal!"
"How many Sunflowers would you recommend having at once?" Josie asked. Dave paused in thought before responding, "At least enough to fill up the back row, so 5." She simply nodded in response.
"Now, take a look at the TV," Crazy Dave continued. They all looked and a second later, the Sunflower on the screen suddenly glowed a bright yellow! A second after that, an object that resembled a sun popped out of her face, landing right in front of her!
"That right there," he said while pointing at the sun-shaped object, "is a sunawatt! Or rather, 25 sunawatts!"
"Didn't you say they were invisible?" Alex asked.
"Yes," Dave responded, "but I also said I created a technology that allows you to see them, which I have installed on the security camera!"
"So what happens when she spits out a sunawatt?" Freddy asked.
"Well, normally they'd be collected automatically by the computer," he admitted, "but something went wrong with the camera, so we have to do it manually."
"How do we do that?" Freddy asked.
"It's not that hard," Dave responded. "The sunawatt also appears on the laptop." He then pointed to the laptop screen where, sure enough, a yellow dot was shown in the same space where the sunawatt was on the TV.
"All we have to do is scroll with the mouse and click on the sunawatt," he continued. "It will then be added into the sunawatt counter!"
"This is all amazing!" Josie told him with a smile on her face.
"I second that," Alex said. "You may not be completely sane, but you sure can make a pretty amazing self-defense system!"
"Why, thank you!" Dave responded. "And hey, thanks for letting me stay here!"
"No problem," Freddy replied. "Just one more question."
"Yes?"
"Why did you bring highly toxic chemicals?!" Dave just smiled.
"I've had ideas for other plants. The way to create them is with these chemicals!"
"What other ideas do you have?" Josie asked with curiosity.
"You'll just have to wait until they're done," Crazy Dave responded. With that, Alex looked down at his watch.
"It's pretty late," he told them. "Let's get some sleep. We haven't seen zombies for a while. Hopefully it'll stay that way overnight."
"Hopefully it'll stay that way for eternity..." Josie murmured and then walked up the stairs.
"I assume she's tired of the zombies?" Dave asked the boys.
"Aren't we all?" Alex responded.
"Yeah, I suppose you have a point," Dave replied.
"In a way, I think she's been affected the most," Freddy told him. "Alex and I know for sure what happened to OUR parents. She has no idea if hers are dead or hiding somewhere. All that not knowing seems to be getting to her."
"I understand," Dave replied with a slow nod. "My buddy Harvey Flaxcaster was headed to Portland for vacation last year. I haven't heard from him since! I mean, maybe it's best to assume he's gone, but at the same time, there's always that small possibility..."
"Let's just head to bed," Alex quickly told them all. "We've had a busy day. We need our rest." The guys nodded in agreement and Alex and Freddy headed upstairs while Dave lied down on the sofa in the basement. When officially upstairs, Freddy turned to Alex and asked, "Are you still sure we should be letting him stay here?"
"Of course," Alex responded. "He's got nowhere else to stay, and he clearly can help us defend ourselves against these zombies! Do you really want your brain eaten?"
Freddy just stared at his brother in silence and then proceeded to walk over to his room. The brothers said their goodnights and Alex started walking to his room.
On the way, he passed his parents' old room, where Josie was sleeping in. He paused, slowly opened the door a crack, and saw her sitting on the bed with her head down and hands on her face, and heard the sound of weeping coming from behind her hands.
Alex just stood there for a few seconds and slowly yet quietly shut the door again. He truly felt sorry for her; less than a year of having a new life in a new place and it's ruined by mind-chomping creatures. But at least she's not completely alone. She's with the two people outside her family that she considers to be just like brothers.
After standing in the hallway for a few more seconds, Alex then walked over to his room. He quickly changed into his pajamas, lied down on his bed, removed his glasses, and slowly closed his eyes. A lot happened on the one-year anniversary of the day the world went into the worst chaos in history. The biggest and most important, however, was the fact that he and the others had a way to protect themselves! Hopefully it would work as well as Dave said it would....and that was the last thing Alex thought of before drifting to sleep.