[William Robbins]

"Well I still say it is the perfect name."

"And like I said, Eddie, I'm not going to call my restaurant Pete's Pristine Tasties. You may like it, but it just don't work for me," Pete replies as the two sit in the booth of their restaurant going over more of the particulars about the impending grand opening.

Of course they aren't quite ready to serve the public yet. There are still way too may details to be worked out. And as usual Pete and Eddie can't agree on most of them. They might be brothers, but blood has never been able to keep them from looking at life differently.

Eddie is the older of the two by three years. Unfortunately for him, being older hasn't meant being more successful. Sometimes it grates on him that here he is in his mid-forties and finding himself forced for a variety of reasons to end up working for his brother who always seemed to get all the breaks when it came to life.

This little venture is a perfect example. Pete is bankrolling the idea because he was the one whose wife just got the big windfall from an inheritance. The idea for the place and its unique approach to serving food might be Eddie's, but he couldn't find any backers to invest in it. So he had to settle for letting his brother be his partner and that meant if it was Pete's money, then he expected to be the boss.

Even nature seemed to conspire against Eddie when it came to his brother. Pete was taller with a more athletic build. Of course with both of them being in their forties now, age had added enough pounds and taken away sufficient hair from their heads that appearance was no longer the source of angst and envy for Eddie in terms of his brother than it once was.

In a way at least, this reality of aging had been part of what had allowed him to have a more realistic relationship with Pete over the last few years. There were hardly any bragging rights in the looks department between the two men these days with both being overweight, balding and needing to wear glasses. The three inches difference in height didn't even matter much when both had bodies now shaped like eggs.

So they sat at the booth in the restaurant, barely able to squeeze into the seats and went over the plans. Eddie had convinced Pete to let them hire somebody to design the place. And most of the remodeling was done. The kitchen was finished, and the dining area, which was large enough to accommodate ten booths and an equal number of tables and chairs. It might not be huge, but if all went as both of them hoped, this would be just the beginning of one of many similar places they would open down the road. At least that was the dream, providing the novelty of their approach turned out to be as successful as both expected.

The decor of the place was made to look like a space ship control room. Like one would expect to see in any Sci-Fi movie where the ship's captain sat and barked out orders to use lasers to kill an enemy. It wasn't an unique decor, but was in keeping with the general theme of them offering a restaurant of the future in terms of their technology.

As for the cuisine, they had picked catchy names, but it still boiled down to being about burgers and salads and the usual faire you would expect to find in any diner. Nothing special in that regard.

"Will you stop that," Pete whines as he looks up annoyingly from the file on the booth's table at his brother.

Eddie stops playing with the buttons on the small black box located near the wall and then stares at his brother. "You want to give me a break? I was just checking them to make sure they were working okay. It never hurts to be double-check them you know?"

"Well that's all fine and good, but since you have no idea how the thing works, you could hardly be expected to check it, would you?"

"I do to know how it works. I might not have put the box together, but I understand the idea. After all I better. I can hardly be expected to run this place if I don't know how to explain this system to our customers."

"Okay, Eddie then let me hear your explanation? I mean just for the sake of being sure we agree on what we are going to tell the customers."

Eddie shrugs his shoulders. "Suit yourself. Alright this little device is our idiot proof, moron safe-"

"Oh jeez, Eddie will you knock it off with trying to be cute here. Just say it like we rehearsed."

"God you can be such a pain in the butt at times Pete. I was just trying to keep things on the light side. After all it isn't like we haven't been over this a million times."

"Let's make it a million and one okay?"

"Okay. Anyway, welcome to our restaurant of the future sir or madam. This is our revolutionary state of the art, customer-ordering system. You just go through the menu on the monitor and punch in your order and payment information. We guarantee prompt and speeding service of your meal that will materialize on your table via our unique transporter device. In the blink of any eye, you can receive your meal, hot, perfectly cooked and the best thing of all, when you want it. There how's that?"

"It will do for now. We still have to work on it a little I think."

"Oh man, Pete you're getting silly on this. Look we got the most unusual restaurant on the planet. This whole concept that we've cooked up is unlike anything anyone has ever tried. And thanks to finding that scientific genius that could give my dream some concrete possibility, we can take the idea of fast food to a level nobody ever imagined. Think of it, no waiting. From the moment you sit down and punch in your order it will take a whole thirty seconds before it appears on your table full cooked. Who can compete with that? And we are going to set this up on-line via the internet where you can book a reservation in advance or even pre-order your meal for the exact time you want to come to eat. I tell you, this is going to be the biggest hit in the restaurant business ever. We are going to get unbelievably rich off this thing. Later we can even branch out into take out where you can pay for a remote device to be installed at your house and never leave your house to enjoy a fast food meal again. I call that a working man's idea of heaven."

"Well that it might be Eddie, but the fact remains we still got to get the bugs out of our cooking system for this thing to work."

"Are you going to harp on that again? Those things aren't enough to keep us from opening on time."

"Maybe not to you, but I think there are pretty important. After all if anybody was to find out there was no actual food in our food it could cause problems."

"Hey you know as well as I do that eventually there will be. But for now the only way we could actually get anything to work in the transporter device was by using synthetic substances. Besides they do look, smell and taste like the real thing. So nobody should ever know otherwise. We managed to fool the health department, so what are you worried about?"

"I guess I'm still a little uncomfortable about rushing this thing so much. After all the scientist who whipped up the synthetic formula did say he wasn't going to guarantee that the synthetic material was completely safe for human consumption."

"Yeah, but it also said the possible side affects even if they did occur would be negligible. That was the exact word he used, negligible. And that don't sound too risky too me."

"And you aren't the least bit worried about that other problem he mentioned?"

"Oh god, Pete, are you going to bring that up again? That was just a theory, he said that it might happen, but that the chances were totally unlikely it would actually happen. And remember in every case where he tested the system it never occurred. So why worry?"

"I don't know. But to me if one customer hit the buttons on the ordering device and instead of having his order materialize at his table, it turned out to be some horrible
creature from another dimension, planet or something from the past it could really be embarrassing."

"And I say, we just don't let that kind of thing keep us from our dreams. Look, we are going to implements to safeguard against any danger even if that does happen. We installed a special laser unit near the ceiling that is keyed into the computer. If anything other than food appears on the table, it will take care of them."

"But computers aren't perfect. And what if that laser misses? Do you really want to have it on your conscience if some ravenous alien creature gets summoned by our transporter system and eats a customer?"

"I think you are exaggerating the risks. Even the scientist said the odds against anything like that happening was so remote. He said we might and I repeat might end up with some plant, but not too likely the transporter could even lock in on something larger or more dangerous. Hey, who knows if that did happen in terms of a plant, we might be able to work it in as a salad option. See there is an upside to most things if you are willing to look long enough."

"Hmmm, Eddie. You do sound convincing, but I would just feel so much better if we could give scientist more time to do some testing."

Eddie reaches over and places his hand on his brother's forearm. "Pete, please. I need this. I'm not like you. I've never had one dream or hope work out in my life before. I just got to have this one and I mean right now. Please, for me? Brother I'm begging you to let us take the risks. Trust me in a few months, you will never regret it."

Pete can feel his resolve melt away after seeing that look of desperation in his brother's eyes. "Well I guess as long as you make sure the laser is working right-"

"I promise."

"Okay then we will open on time. And what do you think of the name, Cafe Fantasy, where we make all your fast food dreams a reality?"

"Works for me," Eddie replies as he removes his hand. Inside, he think the name sucks, but he doesn't want to risk saying anything to delay the restaurant.

A few weeks later, the restaurant is packed as usual. People come and go so incredibly fast and word of mouth has made the Cafe Fantasy the hottest meal ticket in town.

Eddie sits at a computer in his office located a few blocks away from the restaurant. He stares at the screen monitoring the restaurant. It is another great and predictable night for success.

Pete comes through the doorway holding a print out. He walks over and places the print out on Eddie's desk. "Have you seen the latest figures?"

"Yep, saw them this morning. Sales are just as I told you they would be and then some. So are you through dragging your feet and going to let us branch out? I got a waiting list of people wanting a franchise the moment we give them a green light. Why if we play our cards right we could be the number one fast food chain in the world in a matter of months."

"I'm ready. I have to confess I was wrong Eddie, and you were right. Despite my concerns, we've never had a single transporter glitch that caused any major problems."

"Great, what say we go out and celebrate?"

"Sure," Pete replies, slapping his brother on the back.

The moment they leave, the monitor that is trained on the cafe shows a weird looking purple creature that resembles a two-headed lion suddenly appear on a customer's table. As the customer screams, the laser focuses in on the creature. It hums and then begin to emit its ray.

But instead of hitting the creature it hits the customer causing him to be disintegrated. By now, the creature has leaped off the table and chasing down the other patrons and quickly manages to kill them and then eats them.

The laser unfortunately overheats due to a malfunction and then temporarily shuts down. Then the creature leaps up on another table just as the transporter makes the food order materializes and in the process also manages to transport the creature back to its original dimension, along with the food order that the beast was devouring.

As for the restaurant, the door soon opens and the next group of patrons shows up and sit down, totally oblivious to anything that had just happened. They will get their orders and leave, passing on great reviews word of mouth just like so many.

Eddie and Pete return from their celebration and check the monitor. It is business as usual. It is a few days later that they will have a visit from the police to aid them in dealing with some cases of missing persons who had credit card charges from their cafe from the night they disappeared.

However, the Cafe Fantasy will go on with business as usual. And soon, it will spread like wildfire with franchise around the globe. Only later will anyone discover a new meaning of the word "leftovers" when the truth about the transporter glitch occurs and somebody survives to talk about it.

[JirQUEST]

i love it... the concept is unique and would have gotten off to a great start if not for ur last few paragaphs. i feel there is no need to say that a problem will occur soon, since the readers will anticipate it, given the earlier worries mentioned by Pete earlier in the story. fix that and ur story shld read better at the end, instead of a summary.