The Last Invention Page 8

  My head felt weak, and I rested it on Colin’s shoulder. I could feel my insides churning. When he was done singing, Colin kissed me on the lips. A long, slow kiss that had our tongues dancing together. A strong feeling inside me told me that Colin was my new master. I was no longer Melanie, but Colin’s servant. Colin stood up. He took a blanket out of a bag and spread it out on the soft dirt of a newly-filled grave.

  “Come over here.”

  I stood up immediately and walked over to Colin. He guided me down onto the blanket. The thick fabric on the soft dirt felt like a luxurious mattress, a magical carpet floating above the palaces of Ancient Persia. I stretched out as if on a royal bed. Colin lay next to me and held me in his arms. His warm body chased away the chill of the night. Our kiss resumed. No kiss in history was ever as passionate, as gentle, as long. When the clock struck one, I could not tell the difference between Colin’s lips and mine. Which tongue was his, I had no idea. Where his hands had been, only the gnarled trees had seen. It reminded me of the dream where I was kissing Adrian for years on end, until our bodies were entombed under the snow in a secret cavern.

  I loved being kissed by boys—long kisses that broke all the romantic records in human history. But that dream seemed fake compared to this exotic kiss with Colin—that was just puppy love. My love for Colin was real, and every muscle, every molecule in my body adored him fiercely. If he handed me a golden dagger and asked me to shove it in my heart, I would do it in an instant. He was my master, and besides, he could always fix my heart with those magical musical notes of his. Our kiss continued. When the clock struck two, his hand was caressing my heart, feeling for its beat, ready to spark it back to life if it failed me.

  When the kiss finally ended, I forgot what planet I was on, what the color of our sun was, and what the purpose was of doing anything else but lying with Colin. He began to kiss my neck. Colin’s hand caressed the inside of my leg. He tickled my thigh and inched his warm fingers under my skirt. The full moon bathed my face in warmness. My breathing stopped. The crickets were still silent—only an owl asked who my strange new lover was. Even though my lips were now free, I did not have the strength to give an answer. So the owl continually asked, and I, with my eyes closed, and lacking the strength to speak, just thought the answer in return: my lover was Colin. Colin.

  Colin explored each new body part with the gentleness of a sculptor making a statue. My clothes came off with the same care and concern, as if I was as fragile as wet clay. When he put his body on top of mine, our skin came together just as our lips had done, until we became not two people, but one, mingling with enough romantic energy to infuse life into whatever poor soul lay dead six feet beneath us. We became a bundle of pure warmth, a single entity, the tiny hairs on our bodies curling around each other to assure that we could never break apart.

  A kiss in this conjoined state was about as blissful a feeling as can exist on this planet. There was no Melanie to worry about any more, it was just US—our new being that we had filled with the power and energy of true love. When the clock struck three, there was no hope of any force of physics being able to pull us apart. There was only one more piece of clothing left on each of us, and just when Colin was trying to remove them, the ground beneath us began to shake.

  It was no surprise that the Earth itself would be jealous of our legendary love—after all, millions of years had gone by and no two humans had every bonded so fiercely, certainly never enough to make the planet itself jealous of the human feelings it had so long missed out on. But tonight we had gone over the line—we had loved too much, too long, and too powerfully, for the Earth to stand still any longer. So there was a small Earthquake beneath our sweaty bodies. We didn’t think much of it at first.

  Then a decomposing hand reached up out of the dirt.

  And then another one.

  The worm-infested hands grabbed Colin and pulled him away from me, all the adhesive strength of our true love tearing away like a band-aid. The ripping noise caused the small animals in the graveyard to spring back to life—to cricket and chirp, and rustle, and scamper. The owls again inquired as to who this newcomer was. This dead body that jealously separated me from my lover. This time, though, an answer came.

  The undead body pulled itself out of the grave, revealing a skull barely covered by some last lingering skin.

  “I’m Logan,” it said. “Remember me? Look at that beautiful full moon, kids.”

  I converted every bit of my love energy to a scream. Colin tried to pull me up, so we could sprint away in our underwear. But Logan pulled a butcher knife out of his back and lunged at Colin. Logan was much bigger and stronger than Colin. Colin was a delicate boy who sang pretty songs. He played quarterback in football, where big boys like Logan protected him. So Logan plunged the knife into Colin with ease. Colin fell quickly, the life draining from his body. His blood mixed with the green slimy moss on the ground. Something died inside me when his brown eyes closed for the last time. My lover, my master, was gone.

  The spell of the Voxinator broke, and I suddenly remembered that I was Adrian inside of Melanie’s body. It was the deepest I had ever roleplayed anybody. I had only my panties on, and a decomposing teenage Frankenstein was staring at me, holding a bloody butcher knife. Colin was dead on the ground. Logan didn’t want to kill me, though. He stared at me with a loving look in his bloodshot eyes. He dropped the knife and stumbled over to me.

  I quickly did a diving roll over to the knife. Logan, in his advanced state of decay, was slow and clumsy. I picked up the knife and lunged at him, stabbing his throat repeatedly. He said things in a gravelly tone, the throaty hiss of a broken voice box making it impossible to make out the words. His neck finally snapped, and his skull separated from his body. His zombified corpse fell onto the blanket covering his grave. I wondered if this was finally the end of that mutant horror.

  I dragged Logan, Colin, our torn bloody clothes, and Logan’s head over to an open grave on the other side of a small hill. I dumped them all inside and filled it in as best as I could before my strength gave out. I had to get Melanie back home and into some clean clothes before anybody saw her here. Dawn’s rosy finger was about to delicately tap the horizon. In just my panties, I sprinted out of the cemetery and back onto the quiet, suburban streets. It was a familiar journey, but usually I did it as a boy and not a girl. The UPS deliveryman was roving around in his brown truck. He spotted me and looked concerned.

  “Cedar Drive is the fourth right, not the third!” I yelled at him. Melanie’s mind was much clearer than Adrian’s for giving directions. I had forgotten about the small dead-end right before Cedar Drive. The UPS guy gave me a thumbs-up and sped off. Man, those guys never give up.

  I waved good-bye to the truck.

  Then I smiled and limped toward Melanie’s house.

  I finally had an idea of how to get Melanie together with Adrian—I mean, the real me. After all, Colin was dead, and she was no longer his slave. Logan was dead again. That left only Adrian. There was still hope. I limped into her house and up to her room. I closed her bedroom door and leaned against it with her body, still trying to make sense about what happened out there. Our heart was racing.

  Still roleplaying Melanie, I took a quick shower in her bathroom. I didn’t even enjoy it. I just wanted to wash the dirt and blood off. Then I sat down at her desk to write her a long note in shaky handwriting. It read:

  Dear Melanie,

  This is Adrian. I know you’ve figured out by now that I only killed that Logan kid to protect you. I created him with a device called The Body Builder. It’s under my bed at home, but it’s not working anymore. It was given to me by a crusty old guy named Ricky and a green pig named Oinkleberry. I’m not crazy. It had magical powers that made Logan’s touch beyond human comprehension. He hypnotized your mom with it, and that’s why she let you have a boy over that day. I showed up just at the right time because I knew he was going to hurt you.

  If you remember anything a
bout what happened tonight at the cemetery, you’ll know that I’m telling the truth. Colin was going to do the same thing to you, only using a different hi-tech device. I’m devoting the rest of my life to protecting your purity. So far I’m doing pretty good. Please don’t be mad at me. It’s all true. Go get the Body Builder at my house if you don’t believe me—I read somewhere that these devices can be reset by pushing a paper clip into a small hole. Come visit me in prison. We can talk and make a plan.

  Love,

  Adrian

  When I put down the pen, I noticed a large crumpled piece of paper sticking out of some books on the edge of Melanie’s desk. I pulled out the piece of paper. It read:

  The Sol Enhancer

  The Sol Enhancer is a device that can program any part of your body to shine as bright as a star, infusing that body part with the same natural properties found in starlight. Simply think about which body part you would like to enhance, and which type of star you would like it to resemble, and squeeze The Sol Enhancer tightly. Before long, your chosen body part should be transformed.

  Star Types

  You may choose from the following star types: dwarf, red dwarf, yellow dwarf, red giant, blue giant, super giant, white dwarf, brown dwarf, neutron star, pulsar, double star, binary star, eclipsing binary, X-ray binary, Cepheid variable, mira variable.

  Bonus: if you choose yellow dwarf star, you will be able to access a hidden feature of the Sol Enhancer called The Smell Enhancer. You can adjust your body’s smell to mimic up to ten scents found in the universe. Simply squeeze the orb and recite which smells you would like infused into your body.

  Warning: Effects of the Sol enhancer and Smell Enhancer will disappear in 24 hours if not renewed.

  I bit my tongue. My palms started sweating. My legs felt weak. Melanie had also gotten a device from Ricky and Oinkleberry! It’s what made her hair so bright, and why I sneezed all those times! I found a small yellow orb on the floor next to her desk. It was heavy, and it was covered with alien writing. The Sol Enhancer. I closed my eyes and dove deep into her mind, trying to find the memory of how she got it. Sure enough, she had ventured down a strange path in the cemetery near the armless statue. She bought it for a dollar from a green pig. She was their first customer, not Colin. He must have gotten his device after I got mine. Melanie had used the Sol Enhancer to make herself more radiant, and she enjoyed teasing Adrian and Colin with it.

  Adrian. I searched her brain for every thought about me, starting with the most romantic ones. She thought I was cute. Little boy cute. Adrian was more like a little brother than a boyfriend. Melanie had made him fall madly in love with her, but then she felt guilty about it. That’s why she quit the tutoring job. A small part of her wanted to hug him, to kiss him, to roll around in a green meadow together—nearly crushing small furry creatures. But it would be wrong. She was so much older than him. She was more like an older sister. Then there was that whole weird thing with Logan. Adrian Killed him, and she thought he was crazy, but…his letter told her the truth. He had gotten a device from that strange garage sale. The Body Builder. He created Logan, and that explained all those strange things that happened. It all made sense now.

  I suddenly realized that I had complete control of Melanie’s brain. I could seek any memories and feelings, and I could feed her memory core any information that I wanted her to remember. She already had read my note and understood it. Would she remember it? I closed Melanie’s eyes and concentrated really hard. Her brain was clear and logical. She knew so much about the universe—how old it was, the process that formed it, about galaxies, stars, planets, advanced math using complicated symbols. It was a confusing blur that I couldn’t understand. So I just tried planting memories and thoughts directly in her brain. This is what I told her:

  Adrian is your real lover.

  He Killed Logan to protect you—read the note again if you forget this.

  Adrian is now thirteen. You’re fifteen. You already know that the universe is thirteen billion years old. Do the math.

  Adrian is not your younger brother. He’s not little boy cute anymore. He’s handsome. He almost needs to shave.

  You don’t need that stupid orb. You’re more beautiful naturally than anything else that has ever evolved on Earth.

  I stumbled over to the window, opened it up, and tossed the orb outside. It landed in the street and rolled over to the curb. I slammed the window shut. Melanie was getting a little chilly, so I opened her dresser. I picked out some soft pink panties and put them on. Then I found a silk nightgown and put that on too. I dove into bed and pulled the covers up. After Melanie was perfectly comfortable, I decided it was time to leave. I didn’t want to go, but I was tired. Anyway, I could come roleplay her whenever I wanted.

  “There’s no place like my body, there’s no place like my body, there’s no place like my body,” I said. At once my spirit soared into the sky, launched into outer space, skipped across the surface of Mars, then zipped back to Earth and landed in my old body. Strange. The light in my cell was on. My body was on the floor, clutching the instructions for the Roleplaying Ring. I had no clothes on. My arms and legs were pulsating with pain.

  I suddenly noticed a small asterisk at the bottom of the instruction sheet that I hadn’t seen before. Why am I so bad at reading instructions!

  *Please note: When you roleplay someone at level black, their consciousness will switch places with yours for the duration of the session. That is, they will roleplay in your body while you roleplay in theirs. Try not to roleplay any creature who might have the desire to kill you off while it is inhabiting your body.

  Now you know why Melanie’s brightness has faded—which is to say that she is the most beautiful girl on the planet, but I don’t sneeze uncontrollably when I look at her. Maybe my note will show her that she doesn’t need to improve her body. She’s perfect. If there was just some way of measuring perfection, I could prove that. It would make her so happy.

  I don’t know if Melanie remembers anything about the night that Colin died. Maybe she’s sorting it all out in her mind. When she stares at me in the courtroom, it seems like she understands, but she still hasn’t come to visit me so we can make a plan together. I’m still rotting here in my cell, waiting for the Pamela Anderson nurse to come give me a sponge bath. I’m too afraid to use the Roleplaying Ring anymore because I don’t know what’s going to happen to my body when I’m being roleplayed. Switching consciousnesses with people is just too scary. It made me feel so violated. How can I ever have done that to Melanie? It seems like every new day, the Adrian from yesterday seems like such an immature, uncaring child. I hope that stops eventually.

  I’m back to my old style of entertainment—thinking about Melanie while lying in bed with the light off. But it’s different now. I don’t ever want to be like Logan or Colin. I’ve been trying really hard to edit my fantasies, to make them more pure, more perfect—Melanie deserves that. I’ll be honest. It hasn’t been easy. Alone in my cell, I fight with my body to be like the nine-year-old boy that felt alive and special the day that he met his math tutor for the first time. True love over long division, when my greatest fantasy was that Melanie would touch my hand to steady my shaky writing.

  I can’t believe that none of my friends or teachers from back home have ever visited me here. It’s just the psychiatrist with the mole, the nurse, my new lawyer who smells like potatoes, and my parents occasionally. Nobody’s even hired a tutor for me! Doesn’t that violate No Child Left Behind or something? I remember a poster on the wall in math class at school: “Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss, you’ll land among the stars.” There aren’t any posters like that in my cell. The only words in this room are on a tiny sticker taped to my crummy little toilet: “Don’t flush more than two times in one minute.”

  This is your favorite narrator, The Tough Puppy, signing off.

  Part 3

  The Interrogatrix

  Guilty.

  That’s what the jury
said about me. They wouldn’t even look at me when they came into the courtroom to tell the verdict—except one old guy who had been staring at me since day one of the trial. I was hoping that perv would convince all the other jurors that they should let me go, like in those courtroom movies. I even winked at him a bunch of times. That creep betrayed me, just like everyone else.

  I got eight years in prison. It could have been way worse, but I’m too young for an adult jail sentence. And there’s no death penalty for thirteen-year-olds after all.

  They sentenced me to a youth prison until I turn 21—one of those places that looks like a college campus, only it’s surrounded by an electrified fence and towers with snipers in it. You sit around in therapy groups all day talking about how it’s not polite to kill people. The teacher is an ex-murderer who changed his ways and now wants to help teach kids. The nurses in those places don’t look like Pamela Anderson. Not even close. They look like Bubba.

  The worst thing of all is that they arrested Melanie too. I fell on the ground and cried when my parents told me. Dad had to hold me up. They charged her with the murder of Colin. Her clothes, hair, DNA, and lots of other evidence were found at the cemetery near his dead body. Oddly, they didn’t find the murder weapon. I wonder if they checked Colin’s spine.

  Now I have to tell you something weird.

  I’m not in prison, and neither is Melanie.

  We’re trapped in my fantasy.

  Melanie and I are on our floating tower in space, resting next to each other on a tiny blanket. We share a single small pillow covered in green velvet. Life will never be the same as when we were little kids, back on warm safe Earth. I have Melanie now all to myself, and I won’t ever let her go. I will protect her forever, just like I promised.