The Last Invention Page 7

  “I tried, but it didn’t work. But I wrote a third song that you’ll never forget. Tonight I want to sing it for you some place that’s quiet—no interruptions. Meet me at the rotting tree in the cemetery? Midnight?”

  “Ok.”

  It made me sick that she got so romantic with Colin, but she never even kissed me when she came over to tutor. All she ever did was pinch my cheek like some little kid. I was thirteen and Colin was fourteen. Big deal. The universe is like a gazillion years old. What would she have let Colin do with that hand if his mom didn’t call up?

  Melanie stopped daydreaming and set her alarm clock for 11:30 p.m. Her lips tingling, she shoved the picture under her pillow. She needed to hear more of those musical notes, to feel that kiss again. Nothing else in the world felt as good. She shut off the light and went to sleep. When she was unconscious, I made her say my name over and over again. I wanted her to dream about me again.

  It didn’t work. Colin’s song was swimming around in her brain—a dream that was nothing but music. It was missing notes and a little garbled, but it crept into the deepest corners of Melanie’s mind and awakened the neurons there. Every region of her brain was active at once, alive with thoughts, memories, smells, sounds from her past. I witnessed a lifetime of experiences in just a few seconds. Colin’s song grew louder, as if it sensed my presence and wanted to drown me out, to deafen me. Finally, the song disappeared and was replaced with just a loud static. A television station with no signal, a radio with a broken antenna. The volume kept going up until there was nothing in her brain but that awful noise.

  I couldn’t take it anymore.

  “There’s no place like my body, there’s no place like my body, there’s no place like my body.” My spirit soared out of Melanie’s and sped into outer space. It circled the sun twice and then zoomed back toward Earth. It finally smashed into my body back in my cell.

  Melanie had abandoned me.

  I was completely alone.

  That’s when I came up with my plan to destroy Colin.

  I got up and went to pee in my little toilet in the corner, laughing in the darkness. I was going to ruin him. His life was going to be over in just a few minutes. What Logan got was nothing compared to Colin’s fate. Poor kid. Such a beautiful voice, too. That’s when I noticed that my whole cell was glowing a faint red color. The crummy little toilet, my stream of urine, the furniture, the rug. All red. I looked down at my ring. The gem was red.

  I turned on the light and snatched the instructions from under the bed.

  Level red unlocked: At this level you will be able to control both the actions and the brain of the character you are roleplaying—but only when that character is sleeping. Now you can seek its deepest, most hidden memories without waiting for them to be dredged up by chance. You can inject information and memories and render thoughts using the creature’s brain. In a sense, you will fully roleplay the target subject. However, your original identity and consciousness will still be available, making you aware that you are roleplaying someone else. Should the target subject wake up, you will lose control of all muscle and mind function.

  I shut off the light and dove back into bed. No time to waste.

  “Roleplay Colin,” I said. My spirit leaped from body, dove down into the Earth, through the thick crust of the planet, down into the red magma, through the iron core, and out the other side. Then it surfed across the oceans of the world, until it made one final leap into the air and down into Colin’s house. It oozed throughout his body until it filled his limbs and skull completely. He was asleep, so I had control of Colin in both body and mind. Adrian’s brain was still there in the corner, alive enough for me to remember what happened and narrate this to you.

  The first thing I noticed was that Colin’s body felt similar to Adrian’s. There was pain. Now I knew for certain that being a boy was more painful than being a girl—at least when lying crotch-down in bed. Melanie’s body always felt so relaxed and pain-free. And another thing—Colin’s blankets were rough and scratchy, and the room smelled like a cat had died twice there. There was no pile of cotton, no blueberry smell mixed with salty air.

  I hadn’t yet had a chance to be in control of Melanie’s mind, but Colin’s mind was a lot like mine. When I accessed his most important memories, Melanie came up on almost every single slide. His cat Fluffy came up a few times too. Maybe that was the cat that died twice in here—which meant that it only had seven lives to go. I couldn’t even imagine what the room would smell like after that.

  I was horrified by what I found when I accessed Colin’s deepest desires. I can’t even speak of them, but they involved Melanie. They weren’t the same as mine. There was no love—he didn’t want to hold her on a floating tower, to protect her forever. He had a whole bunch of girls in there that he was planning on making his girlfriends. And they weren’t just his age, older women too. I never once thought about another girl—never! And I never will. And that Pamela Anderson nurse doesn’t count. I don’t have a choice with her.

  There was something else. I dredged it up from a deep part of Colin’s brain, in the area of his mind that stored his most important possessions. There was something called the Voxinator that had changed his life forever. He loved it. He could never live without it. He had bought it from an old guy and a green pig when he was walking home from school one day.

  I sat up and turned on Colin’s light. His room was so different than mine, but it seemed familiar in an instant. After all, I was Colin. Adrian was just a fly in the corner of his mind, watching and remembering. I knew where the Voxinator was. I leaned down and reached his arms under his bed. I pulled out a small silver device that looked like a microphone. It had writing on it in a strange language. It was sitting on a big sheet of crinkly paper. I quickly scanned the instructions:

  Voxinator Instructions

  The Voxinator is a device that will allow any creature with a voice box to reprogram their voice in a variety of different ways. There are over 100 different voice programs available, which are explained below. To use the device, simply press the red button and speak the name of the desired program module into the microphone. Repeat the name of the program until you can hear that your voice has fully changed. When you would like your voice to return to normal, simply press the red button again.

  Voice Program Modules

  Zaga Beast from Nebulon 5: This program allows you to mimic the scream of the inhabitants of Nebulon 5. Your voice will consist of high-pitched shrieks. This voice program is very dangerous, and should only be used near creatures whose eardrums are greater than one foot in diameter.

  Giggle Figgle: Think laughter is contagious? Your voice will consist of soft giggles that can make any relevant creature in the universe giggle uncontrollably for long periods of time. Please do not use at funerals or other solemn affairs.

  Ancient Sirens of Earth: Want complete control over someone else? This module will give you the most desirable singing voice in the known universe. Upon hearing your voice, the target subject will fall under your power in three stages:

  Stage 1: The first song will make the target subject fall in love with you.

  Stage 2: The second song will make the target subject fall into a hypnotic trance.

  Stage 3: The third song will make the target subject become your slave for the rest of your life. The subject will follow you everywhere and will never refuse any request.

  Warning: No devices exist that can record a voice altered by this module. Even the most advanced brain cannot reproduce an accurate memory of such a voice, nor will such flawed memories reproduce the power effects of a voxinator-altered voice.

  The rest of the papers had instructions on all the other voice modules—angel voices, the voice of demons, bird chirps, space bugs, strange mutants from faraway planets, robotic voices, and dozens of others. I rubbed my eyes a few times. I couldn’t believe that Ricky and the pig had given this to Colin. I punched the microphone a few times and hurt my hand�
�it was pure evil. All this time I had thought that I was the only one unlucky enough to get messed up with those two. Then again, they did say that I was their second customer. What did they want with Colin, and what did they expect him to do with this thing?

  Unfortunately, I already knew what he was going to do with it. At midnight he was going to use it to sing the third song to Melanie. After that he would own her forever. There would be no chance in the universe for me to become her boyfriend. The instructions made that perfectly clear.

  I tried to break the Voxinator by twisting it so hard that the ball of the microphone would fall off. When that didn’t work, I threw it against the wall. The crash made Colin wake up. I lost control of his body and mind. He looked groggily around the room, wondering how he got into the middle of his floor. He stumbled into the bathroom and sat on the toilet. Gross. It couldn’t be the standing up kind of toilet visit? Finally, he crawled back into bed and looked at the clock. 10 p.m. In two hours he was going to meet his beautiful tutor in the cemetery. He would sing the third song to her and make her his personal slave. He smiled at the thought of making love to her under the full moon, all those silent gravestones standing around them—unable to interrupt their joy.

  I felt helpless. I needed him to fall asleep again. Then he was going to die. Quickly, but painfully. I had worked so hard to protect Melanie from Logan. I sacrificed my freedom for her. Now this Colin kid was planning to do the same horrible thing. I wondered if every boy who ever saw Melanie wanted her just as badly. I already knew the answer. I had been Adrian and Colin. That was enough for me to know what all boys were like. Dark thoughts swirl in the deepest parts of their minds. No! My love for her was true and perfect—not evil, or dark, or menacing. All those nights I had spent with her on our floating tower had taught me that. It was the only place I could protect her from the others—the evil boys, the rest of the boys on this planet. My touch was pure because she already owned me, her willing slave. I had to get her there fast.

  Colin fell asleep at last. I instantly regained control of his body and mind. I sat up in bed very slowly, careful not to wake him up again. I looked around the darkened room, wondering what would be the easiest way to commit suicide. And what would happen to my spirit if the host body died? The instructions didn’t say anything about that.

  I finally decided on what to do.

  I walked over to the window and opened it carefully. A chilly breeze rushed into the room, but it wasn’t enough to wake Colin up. When the opening was wide enough, I leaped headfirst into the night air. I soared down and landed on a bush. Colin woke up instantly, and I lost control of his body and mind. It seemed like every branch was poking him in that sensitive spot. His heart started pounding, and his whole body filled with panic. Why had he jumped out his own window? He had never been a sleepwalker.

  He scrambled out of the bush, across his lawn, and onto his porch. He grabbed the key from under his front doormat, opened the door, and ran back up to his room, taking the stairs three at a time. His parents were still sleep. They could sleep through a nuclear blast—but he couldn’t risk having a girl over at night. That’s why he chose the cemetery. There would be no interruptions there.

  10:30 p.m. There was no chance of Colin going to sleep again, not after he got all scratched up by the bush. I sat inside his body for what seemed like forever. I had no control. He went to the kitchen to eat a Twinkie. He looked at a naughty magazine that he had under his bed. He played a game on the computer.

  11:15 p.m. Colin got dressed. Then he sat on the floor and activated the Voxinator.

  He programmed his voice by saying “Ancient Sirens of Earth” over and over again into the microphone. He ran over to the bathroom mirror and sang a song into it, while looking at himself. It was the first time I heard the real voice, not a messed-up memory of it. His voice was so beautiful that I felt a surge of emotions grip my spirit and drag it around his body, smashing me against the insides of his limbs. When it finally released me, I saw Colin in a completely different way. He was still looking at himself in the mirror, but somehow he had changed. He was more…perfect. I got lost in his brown eyes, and those freckles…they danced across his face like chocolate sprinkles.

  I was in love with him.

  I wanted to kiss him on his perfect lips.

  I wanted to give him a big hug, but I was trapped helplessly inside his body.

  Colin sang a second song. A tidal wave of energy hit me. My spirit got knocked out of his body, hit all four walls, the ceiling, the floor, and then smashed back into his body. I landed directly in his heart. The beating jostled me around for awhile, and I felt dizzy as I flowed down red waterfalls, swam through his veins, twirled around ribs, took a romantic boat ride through his stomach, plummeted down into his legs, and got jammed at the very bottom of his foot. His tiny pinky toe. Almost as nice as Melanie’s. Wee wee wee.

  That’s when I realized that I had to get out of Colin’s body quickly. If he sang one more song, I would become his personal slave forever. Clearly, the Voxinator effects still worked on spirits that were roleplaying inside his body. The instructions said that the first song will make anybody fall in love with him. The second song will create a hypnotic trance. Did that mean that I didn’t want to kill him anymore?

  I was so confused.

  Time to make an emergency exit.

  “There’s no place like my body, there’s no place like my body, there’s no place like my body,” I said to myself. My spirit boomeranged into outer space, bounced off the edge of the universe, and catapulted back to the Earth—narrowly missing a few black holes on the way. I landed in my old body. My head was spinning. I had a warm feeling inside me. I was still thinking about Colin—the chocolate sprinkles, pouty lips, eyes like the glaring, staring headlights of a Ferrari F150.

  I jumped out of bed and turned on the light. I paced back and forth in my cell, trying to think of what to do next. 11:45. Colin was going to meet Melanie in fifteen minutes at the dead tree in the cemetery. They were going to do all sorts of mushy things together. That made me so angry!

  But was I mad at Colin or Melanie?

  I looked down at my ring. It was glowing black! The final level! After only one roleplaying session at the red level. Maybe falling in love with Colin did it.

  I dove for the instructions.

  Level black unlocked: At this level you gain control of the target subject’s body and mind whether they are sleeping or awake. You will not lose control of it until you choose to leave the body. You are free to roleplay any creature you want for as long as you want with no restrictions.*

  11:50 p.m. I threw the instructions down. I had exactly ten minutes to decide what to do. Do I roleplay Colin or Melanie? And then what?

  Even though I was alone in my cell, I sensed that somebody was watching me. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw thousands of glowing eyes of all shapes and sizes. When I turned to look at them, the eyeballs disappeared. But I could hear thoughts that were not my own. They were trying to communicate something to me. The tiny fuzz on my arms and legs stood on end. The voices became a chorus of murmurs in my head. Was somebody roleplaying me? The mutterings seemed to be sounding out one name. Melanie. Somebody wanted me to roleplay Melanie.

  11:55 p.m. I closed my eyes and tried to concentrate on those voices inside my head. I wanted to know who they were, what they were doing there, and what they wanted from me. Was it Ricky and Oinkleberry? Others? I picked something up in the back of my brain. I had the strange sense that many consciousnesses were enjoying themselves there—they were loving this story. A tale of two primitive genders that needed each other. Boy and Girl. Earth, a quaint low-tech planet. The love that existed there was so romantic, so special, so private. But it got more interesting when the humans fought over each other. Adrian loved Melanie, and Melanie loved Colin, and now Adrian loved Colin. Which pair would get together in the end?

  11:59 p.m. Those voices inside my head were screaming the name Melanie.
They wanted me to roleplay her. Somehow I had become the star of my own story. I was being watched, just like I thought. But not just by Ricky and Oinkleberry. A whole planet was following my every move.

  “Roleplay Melanie,” I said. My spirit soared into outer space, into one wormhole and out another one, zoomed at warp speed toward a distant corner of the universe, right next to a dimensional rift leading to another universe. I circled a planet with multi-colored rings. A green sun beamed overhead. Creatures of all types—people, rabbits, pigs, birds, giraffes, demons, angels, gods, monsters—lay scattered around on rolling green meadows. Tiny silver cubes floated next to them. They all seemed to be deep in concentration. My spirit shot back into space, past a tremendous floating tower, through a swirling wormhole that led back to Earth, and then down to the cemetery near my house. I crash-landed in Melanie’s body just as the clock tower in the distance chimed twelve midnight.

  I was Melanie—in body and mind—and nothing was going to make me lose control of her. My back was leaning against the dead tree in the middle of the cemetery. Crickets chirped all around me. Silhouettes of tall gravestones shimmered under the full moon. A flashlight shined in my face. It was Colin. His cute face seemed to beam at me even after the flashlight shut off. His brown eyes glowed with their own energy. I couldn’t wait for him to get closer.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.”

  He sat down next to me, and took me in his arms. He sang a song to me. All the crickets and bugs and squirrels stopped moving as soon as his voice started up. Even the wind quieted down, and the branches stopped scraping against the stone crypts cut into hillsides. The song was in English. It was about a girl from Ancient Greece who was so beautiful that the entire world fell madly in love with her. After she was taken to a place called Troy, a thousand ships with a hundred thousand men went after her. But that girl looked like a toad compared to Melanie. For Melanie’s beauty had enslaved not just Earth, but another planet in the far corner of the universe. A planet with a green sun. Colin had written the song himself. He said it was inspired by muses inside his head.