From the first crash, the first screams, Herr Doktor Dremel knew that the thing they had all feared had come to pass. Multi-Max had escaped.

With the din of chaos and terror roaring all around him, the aging scientist hobbled out of his hidden back-room laboratory and onto the main sales floor at Lowe’s. He must try to reason with his creation before it easily and cleanly destroyed them all! Following the distinctive whine of the Multi-Max’s motor toward the front of the store, Dremel passed a pile of drywall tidily cut into pieces, a bathroom display with large portions of the grout removed, and some freshly sanded wooden patio furniture. Such versatility! Such minimal dust! Only an oscillating blade could have done this – the Multi-Max must have passed this way!

Then, rounding a pyramid of paint cans gushing colors out of long, straight incisions, he saw it. The Multi-Max had cornered an innocent female customer by the refrigerated soda case – and in her arms was a baby! And in the baby’s arms was a kitten! And in the kitten’s arms was a duckling! The woman’s screams mingled with the sound of the Multi-Max’s oscillating blade, and the hysterical crying and meowing and quacking, into a symphony of ruthless terror. All thoughts of coaxing Multi-Max with a calm word were driven out of Dremel by his anger and fear.

“Multi-Max!” he bellowed. “What do you think you’re doing? This is not what I taught you! Stop this at once!”

Shocked, the Dremel Multi-Max turned toward its inventor. The motor slowed and finally stopped. And it ran into Herr Doktor Dremel arm’s and wept. The Doktor stroked his creation, and they murmured quietly to each other.

“Wh-what does it want?” asked the store manager, emerging from his hiding place behind a pile of ice-melt.

“It wants to be sold somewhere else,” Dremel said. “It’s tired of being limited to Lowe’s. It wants to get out into the world, perhaps on a deal-a-day web site, and meet new people, see new things, go where its fancy takes it. It wants, in short, what we all want: to be free.

“Or, at least, deeply discounted.”

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