The Last Invention Read online

  I grabbed it back.

  “Last Invention, make me my own Last Invention.”

  “Such a request is restricted by the makers of The Last Invention. Please try again.”

  “Fine, make me a computer with lots of games on it.” A small laptop appeared.

  Melanie snatched the device back. We continued trading it, making anything we could think of.

  “Tea bag and hot water dispenser.”

  “TV, high-def please.”

  “A watch.”

  “Telescope.”

  “Perfume.”

  “Waterbed”

  “Boomerang.”

  “X-ray glasses.”

  “Jeans, underwear, and a shirt that are invulnerable to X-ray glasses.”

  It went on like this for awhile, until the whole top of our tower looked like Santa’s sleigh had crashed onto it. We played for a long time, setting up our beds on separate sides of the tower. But when night fell, I started feeling lonely. I crawled over to Melanie and put my head on her brand-new ultra-tight space jeans. The strange fabric tickled my cheek. She rubbed my hair.

  “That got boring fast,” she said.

  “What are we going to do now?”

  “I guess let’s blow up this planet and go home.”

  “Ok.” I sat up and kissed Melanie on the lips. I really, really wanted to know that she was still going to be my girlfriend even after we made it home. Things seemed so different now—before we were two powerless Earthlings captured by an advanced civilization, but with The Last Invention, everything was even. I couldn’t believe that dumb demon gave us one, and it only wanted five of those trash inventions in return!

  Melanie kissed me back. “I’m taking this ring seriously, you know. You must be fourteen by now. You’re not a little boy anymore.”

  “Let’s see,” I said, grabbing The Last Invention from her. “Make us a device to tell us how old we are. And not our particles, or goose bumps, or calcium. Our whole bodies! In Earth years.”

  “Creating The Earthling Age Analyzer 3200. Please wait.” A small rectangle with a blue button on it appeared in my hand. I pressed the button.

  “You are 14.43444 Earth years old. Thank you for using The Earthling Age Analyzer 3200.”

  We had been on this tower for over a year. I was almost as old as Logan. I remember how freaked out I was about certain parts of his body that were different and more mature. Now that same stuff was happening to me. I had to shave. I had hair in embarrassing places. Somebody needs to tell me why boys turn back into apes as they get older and more advanced. Evolution is messed up.

  Melanie grabbed The Last Invention from me.

  “Last Invention, make us a two-seater rocket ship armed with planet-destroying nuclear missiles. It should be capable of flying through class A wormholes.” I stared at Melanie with wide eyes. A spaceship appeared, which looked like a small airplane without wings. The name Earthbound 1 was inscribed on the side. The instructions were taped to the cockpit door.

  “I call shotgun.”

  “Quiet, The Last Invention might not understand.”

  We climbed into the rocket ship and strapped ourselves into the soft interior. It had leather seats and a fancy dashboard with glowing blue lights. Melanie took the front seat even though I called it. I didn’t care. She pushed the “Start” button, and a blue stream of fire shot out the rear exhaust pipe. We slowly lifted into the air. I pinched myself to see if I was dreaming. I couldn’t wait to see the look on the kids’ faces when I showed up back home in a stylish spaceship with a hot girl in the front seat. Darn, if only I was driving. Oh well, Adrian, you can’t make every little detail of your fantasies come true. We’ve been through this already.

  “What if the cops come after us?” I asked as Melanie shifted the gear into “Drive.”

  “We’ll take care of them with this.” She lifted up The Last Invention. Then she whispered something into it, and two pairs of sunglasses appeared. We put them on. “Hang on, kid.”

  The rocket ship accelerated over the tower turrets and into open space. Suddenly, its metallic nose smashed into an invisible barrier, and the whole ship bounced back onto the tower top and crashed on the stone floor. A fire erupted in the rear of the ship. We bailed out of the cockpit just as a small stream of water drenched the flames. The nuclear missiles fell out of their holders and tumbled over the side of the tower. I watched them plummet past all the windows, until they disappeared out of sight.

  “They trapped us here!” I said.

  “We’ll see about that. Last Invention, make us a laser that can cut a hole in the invisible barrier.”

  “Not possible to construct using quark-based particles.”

  “Last Invention, make us a teleportation device,” Melanie said frantically.

  “Not possible to construct due to the Uncertainty Principle of Quantum Mechanics. People cannot be reconstructed in a new location due to an insufficient degree of accuracy.”

  Melanie fell to her knees and buried her face in her hands. I ran over and leaped into her arms. I didn’t know whether to be heartbroken or excited. She would still be mine on our fantasy tower top. But she pushed me away. I tried to hug her again, but she pushed me away harder, her hand pressing painfully into my ribs. I thought I was going to need a Heart-Piecer-Together-XLT. Melanie had never pushed me before.

  “I just need to be alone, Adrian.” She took The Last Invention and trudged over to her blanket. I flopped onto my waterbed and bobbed up and down, staring at her. I didn’t even want to play with any of my new toys. Melanie whispered into The Last Invention and made some kind of mysterious new device. She played with it for awhile, and then tossed it onto the stone floor. She made another device, and did the same thing with that. For hours and hours all she did was fiddle with the silver cube, making new things and throwing them onto a growing pile of futuristic stuff.

  When I got tired, I lay on my back and threw the boomerang into the sky to see how far it would go before coming back. It was some sort of futuristic, electronic thing that zipped out of my hand with its own acceleration. The invisible forcefield extended far above the tower top, allowing the boomerang to fly for awhile—until it eventually hit one of the phantom walls and tumbled back. If I threw it perfectly straight I could really get it to go far, but the end was always the same. One time I got impatient and threw it with all my might in an out-of-control spin. It crashed against the invisible wall and tumbled down the side of the tower, disappearing below. Big deal, it could be replaced. I turned over and stared back at Melanie. She was crying. I couldn’t bear it anymore. Crawling quietly, I made my way over to her and snuck into her arms, hoping she wouldn’t get mad at me.

  “I was so excited to be going home. My mom, she needs me. She’s waiting for me. She’s all alone.”

  I spotted a Mom-Viewer VX12 device on the floor next to Melanie. It showed a woman sitting at a table, staring blankly at the front door.

  “You shouldn’t have looked, Melanie.”

  I put my arm around her, but it didn’t help much. She cried for a long time, leaning her head on my shoulder and letting out short gasps. I closed my eyes and made sure that I was getting no pleasure from being near her while she was feeling bad. That would have been so selfish. While she was resting, I used my feet to drag those bad devices closer to me. Then when her eyes were closed, I picked them up and tossed them over the side of the tower.

  She kissed my neck and put her hand under my shirt. Then she moved her fingers slowly down my stomach into private property. My heart started racing. She had never touched me there before, at least not on purpose. Over the course of a year, cuddling and kissing in our tunics, we had rubbed against each other in every possible way a zillion times over. But this was different. On purpose. So grown-up.

  “Melanie.”

  “Relax. Breathe normally.”

  “I don’t know, Melanie.” I got worried that she would think I was just a little boy again. So lame and
wussy. My insides felt weak. I didn’t push her hand away, even though I wanted to.

  “Haven’t you thought about it?”

  What could I say? This very tower existed only because I thought of her every second while I was alone in that mental institution. A new floor and balcony appeared each time I fantasized about lying with her, doing the very thing she was doing to me, and much more. Part of me just wanted to tell her about my dark fantasies right then, the same thoughts that Logan and Colin had about her. For months I had thought about nothing else, lying in that prison cell alone, in bed, but soaring through space and time with Melanie. Then, somehow, I had escaped from those feelings—the Interrogatrix helped me jam them all into a small golden box, kind of like the one Pandora used. I cemented it shut with a million tons of concrete, filled in the cracks with half-chewed gum, and wrapped the whole thing with Scotch tape—and then my body went back to wanting to just cuddle and kiss her, to protect her, just like I thought when I was nine and so innocent.

  When I got that wish on my tower, it was like being in heaven. Cuddling and kissing was enough for a whole year, and maybe a few back and tummy rubs mixed in. Melanie’s love was more of a gift than I had ever thought I would get. But suddenly, with the gentle caressing of her hand, Melanie was trying crack the box open and flood the world with my guilty thoughts. I sat quietly next to her, breathing softly, my mind racing, letting her do what she wanted. If I didn’t, maybe she would get sick of me and start thinking about a boy her own age again. Maybe she wouldn’t stick with me when we got back to Earth like she promised, and start squeezing my cheek again and saying I was so cute. The dark thoughts came swirling back into my brain, even more intense now, and nothing was going to make them go away this time. Cuddling and kissing would never be enough again. I turned off all my resistances and let those ancient, all-powerful feelings rush through my body.

  I heard a crash in the distance. The whole tower, my body, shook violently. Another floor was being added to the bottom. The construction crew was in place, drenching the bricks with sticky mortar. I had a feeling the tower was going to start growing again, and fast. Many, many levels, would be added until it stretched beyond the edge of the universe. A burst of adrenaline shot through my body. My stomach tied up in a knot. My heart pounded. My breathing stopped. I got worried that I would never survive this experience to see home again.

  Melanie pulled her hand away and flopped down on the pillow. I knew she would think I was little boy lame. It took me awhile to get used to each new thing. I would have been happy with tummy rubs for a year, with her finger circling my belly button for another year after that. But just when Melanie had sped it up, had kicked it into warp-speed, she already wanted to travel to another dimension. I couldn’t handle it. Back in prison, before I hid those feelings away, it had seemed so easy—I didn’t need to get used to anything. But it wasn’t like that in real life. Embarrassed, I pushed my tunic back into place and just lay there with my back to her. We were silent as comets raced by and drenched us with snow and ice.

  “I’m sorry,” Melanie finally said.

  “For what?”

  “Nothing.”

  We didn’t cuddle at all. I had no dreams that night. I woke up in the morning, shivering and alone. Melanie was leaning against a turret fiddling with The Last Invention. Her eyes were bloodshot.

  “Have you been up all night?” I scrambled over to her and spotted a device called The Father Tracker and Information Gatherer Version 2b. I picked it up and tossed it over the side of the tower. “You shouldn’t ask it about him. These devices don’t care about our feelings.”

  “I spoke to him!” she shrieked, rifling through her massive pile of electronic gadgets, looking for one in particular. She found a shiny disc called The Parental Communication Coordinator. “He said awful things to me! Adrian, the worst things!” She wailed like a wolf howling in a moonlit forest. I hugged her and wouldn’t let go, even though she tried to push me away. Eventually, she quieted down. Her mouth let out short bursts that sounded like gasps for air. I held her head against my chest until her tears drenched my tunic.

  “It wasn’t real. These devices can’t create people well.” I tossed the disc over the side of the tower like a Frisbee. It hit the invisible barrier and tumbled far below.

  “Need sleep,” she said. I led her over to the comfortable waterbed. It was the first time that I had to take care of her. I wasn’t tired, but I held her in my arms until she drifted off, and then I still wouldn’t let her go. The green sun beat down on us and made our skin tingly and super-sensitive. I wondered if there were seasons on this planet, because lately it had been making our skin so sensitive that we had to stay apart for awhile so we didn’t hurt ourselves. If Melanie had done that new thing to me during the day, I would have exploded—guaranteed. But I held onto her despite the electrical surges, trying not to touch bare skin. She slept the whole day, until the blazing green sun disappeared over the edge of the planet.

  When Melanie woke up, she started coughing and wheezing. A bloody red tear came out of her eye and made a streak down her face. She scowled at me. It was a look I had never seen before. Both lips began quivering, and curled into a snarling, beast-like snout. Her white teeth looked pointy in the dim light.

  “Adrian, we’re giving these aliens what they want.” She squeezed my arm hard and pulled me toward her.

  “Melanie, stop, it’s not funny.” I pushed her hand away.

  “You are my slave. Obey me.”

  “Melanie, I think you’re sick or something.”

  “Sick, yeah, of living in the same tiny space with you.”

  My heart sank. I stood up and wiped the sweat off my hands. She stood up and slapped me across the face. Hard.

  “Melanie, what?” I held my cheek and tried not to cry.

  “Pathetic human, making me wait all this time.” She slapped me across the face again. Harder. I tasted blood.

  “Melanie, stop.” I could barely say the words through my quivering, blubbering lips. I was going to burst out crying any second. I had to struggle to hold it in.

  She jumped on me, but I pushed her away, and I dove off the bed and rolled over to the hatch in the floor, grabbing The Last Invention on the way. I jumped down into the level below, landing painfully on my side. I heard Melanie growl.

  “You little boy, you lame little boy, get back here!”

  Her face appeared in the open hatch, her bloodshot eyes casting me in a dim red glow. She made a high-pitched shriek, like some beast from the depths. She jumped down and landed on all fours, foam dripping from the corners of her mouth. That’s when I decided to bolt down the stairwell. Tears streaming down my face, I ran with all the strength that my legs could give me, taking the stairs in twos, threes, fours, and even whole levels at times. On some of the darker floors, it felt like I was flying through the air, until my feet landed on the dirty, litter-filled landing below. Behind me, I heard the panting and screeching of Melanie, running after me—maybe still on all fours, I couldn’t tell. I pinched myself over and over again trying to wake up.

  As I ran, faint light from the meteor belt flowed through arched windows and made glowing strips on the floor. Those tiny night-lights followed me down dozens of tower levels. It was farther than I had ever gone before. Nothing could stop me. I didn’t even get tired. I just ran. My mind raced with images of our perfect relationship—her squeezing my cheek and telling me I was cute, my head leaning on Melanie’s dragonbreasts, the gentle caresses when she nursed me back to health, our bodies huddled together for warmth under the blanket, our gentle pecks on the cheek that warmed up the tower top, our first real kiss, the first times our tongues sparked an electric shock, when it no longer mattered where I rested my arms at night, my first tummy rub the night I told her the truth, the electric back rub, and then last night.

  A hundred tower levels zipped by with ease, and with each one I got angrier at Melanie. She took our perfect romance, which could have in
spired even the blind poet Homer to see again, and turned it into something from the back streets of Grand Theft Auto and Resident Evil. It’s not like I didn’t want to do those things with Melanie—each filthy, shadowy level that whizzed by reminded me of that—but I wanted it to be perfect. Now our love was ruined, and we’d never get it back to where it was the night we used the Interrogatrix to explore the mysteries of the universe together. Why did she have to do that? Why! I ran harder. I could see my breath in the cold air—puffy white clouds that evaporated into the dark, abandoned corners of the stairwell.

  I did another hundred levels thinking about her slaps and insults. It became clear to me that this wasn’t a dream. Something was seriously wrong with Melanie. One of those inventions that she made had told her something awful, something beyond what humans could understand. No way Melanie would have slapped me unless her mind snapped. She could have caught that demon disease from me. Maybe the green sun was getting too powerful, or light from the Mira Variable star had seeped into her brain. There were too many mysteries on this planet to figure it out. And there are enough mysteries left on Earth to last a lifetime. Is psycho-anger one of those mysterious girl things? I hoped not. I didn’t really feel attracted to that last image of her—foam dripping from snarling lips.

  I tripped and tumbled down one layer of stairs, but I just picked myself up and kept up the pace. Why did Melanie’s dad have to leave and never come back? He couldn’t be satisfied that there was a big bang, and then over billions of years galaxies, suns, and planets formed, and life evolved from organisms into bigger and bigger things, until it got to humans, who huddled together and made beautiful children like Melanie. Why would you leave something like that, and for what? Then I remembered how sad and hopeless I had felt in the mental institution, and that I had tried to do something even worse. But her dad didn’t have any beautiful dragon to bring him back. I licked blood off my puffy lip and tried not to be so mad at Melanie.