The Last Invention

by Adrian

  It went on like this for days—Melanie nursing me back to health, feeding me, rubbing my stomach, kissing me gently, telling me stories, and me smiling weakly and loving all the attention. I only threw up a few times over the edge of the tower.

  When I woke up one morning, Melanie was not next to me. I looked around the tower top. She was gone. I stood up in a panic. Then I ducked down below the turret tops, remembering our promise to stay out of sight. The hatch in the floor was open.

  “Melanie!”

  I crawled over to it and leaned my head down below, afraid that some monster had taken her. But Melanie was taking a shower.

  “Adrian!” She turned away from me.

  I lifted my head up. Did she know that I had already seen her perfect body a zillion times over? Better not to ask.

  My demon sickness was gone, but I smelled horrible from all that sweating. After a breakfast of those sesame-chicken morsels, Melanie made me take a shower, and she forced me to wash my sweaty, gross tunic. We dried it under the green sun while I crawled around wrapped in our blanket. Part of me wanted to stop caring about seeing each other naked and stuff, and just go old-school Adam-and-Eve style, but Melanie still cared about that stuff. I didn’t want to do anything to risk getting her mad.

  We blocked the hatch again, and spent the rest of the day playing with our high-tech toys—The Body Builder, The Roleplaying Ring, The Sol Enhancer, The Voxinator, and The Interrogatrix. Melanie said that we had to use them to kill Ricky and The Pig, or they would never leave us alone. She said it so calmly that I couldn’t believe the words were coming out of her mouth. I kind of felt bad for those two. After all, they had made it possible for me and Melanie to be together, but they were just using us like slaves to entertain a bunch of bored kids and profit from it. If Melanie was totally honest that we would still be together once we got home to Earth, then I was willing to do whatever she wanted, even if it meant leaving our little cozy tower top.

  We came up with a plan that went something like this:

  1. Ask the Interrogatrix where Ricky and the pig were (answer: inside the planet in the underground city).

  2. Ask the Interrogatrix how to kill a being from Asekz 13 (answer: shatter its internal power core using the appropriate sound frequency.)

  3. Program my voice to Zaga Beast from Nebulon 5 using the Voxinator.

  4. Use the Body Builder to transform Melanie into a being with no ears to protect her from my high-pitched scream. (I was just going to cover my own ears and hope for the best).

  5. Program my body to shine as brightly as a Mira Variable star using the Sol Enhancer. This will heat up the planet and force Ricky and the Pig to the Surface.

  6. Melanie will use the Roleplaying Ring to roleplay one of those teen angels, to warn all the other kids to get away from the upcoming scream by traveling through some wormhole.

  7. Scream.

  Our plan was perfect.

  Here’s how it actually went down:

  1. After I shined like a bright star, Melanie got a really awesome insta-tan.

  2. I couldn’t help telling her how ultra beautiful she was with the tan.

  3. Unfortunately, my voice was already programmed to Zaga Beast from Nebulon 5 when I told her.

  4. Luckily, she had no ears to hear me.

  5. Instead, my shrieks shattered a few of the low flying rocks in the asteroid belt above the planet.

  6. The kids on the planet screamed and ran underground for shelter (which, apparently, wasn’t that hot below because Ricky and the Pig never came up).

  7. My ears popped.

  That night, after we were back to normal, Melanie and I lay on our blanket under the starry sky and giggled uncontrollably. It was one of those laughing fits that hurts inside, but you can’t stop it no matter how hard you try. It didn’t seem to matter that our plan failed. We could try a new sequence tomorrow.

  As galaxies burst into life above us, and colorful dust clouds swirled near the edge of the universe, we asked the Interrogatrix all sorts of questions. Every time we found out something incredible, we sat up, and then flopped down together onto our soft pillow. How many times did George Washington fart while crossing the Delaware? Did Robin Hood really exist? Are there more stars in the universe or grains of sand on Earth? What are the cures for every disease? Is it possible to travel faster than the speed of light? Where is that old cup buried that Indiana Jones was looking for?

  We asked hundreds of questions, and we stopped only so Melanie could explain some of the answers to me. I had never seen her so excited. It was hard to believe that only a day earlier I was totally sick with that demon disease. Far into the night we explored the mysteries of the universe together. We kissed and cuddled, tickled and teased. I never had more fun in my whole life.

  “Why have you stopped narrating?” Melanie asked. “I haven’t heard you for a few days.”

  “I do this thing where I wait for stuff to build up, and then I start narrating again. Kind of like a flashback, flashforward thing. In different parts.”

  “I’ve never met a boy like you,” Melanie said. “Will you narrate for just a few minutes. For me? It’s so sweet the things you say.” She put the Interrogatrix down and put her arm around me. We stared up at the busy night sky. Asekz 13 had no moons, but the meteor belt was lit up by the sun from the other side of the planet, so there were hundreds of micro-moons over the planet at all times, glowing brightly on one side. Dust between the meteors sparkled, like when the sun shines through a window and lights up all the nearly invisible things in the air. In the far distance, two galaxies collided, creating a flash of light and a faint rumbling.

  “Ok. What do you want me to narrate about?”

  “Anything.”

  “Ok, here goes. With Melanie’s arm around me it was tempting to ask the Interrogatrix if any boy in the universe was as happy as me. But it was just a hunk of metal and plastic. It didn’t know true happiness, and it wouldn’t be able to answer the question. I wondered what I could say to Melanie to make her rub my bare stomach like she did when I was sick. Like, maybe as a reward for narrating she would give me a back rub. I was too shy to ask. So I looked up at the starry sky to try to find the most beautiful constellation. After all, we were in a distant corner of the universe that no Earth telescope had ever seen. I would be the first to name the constellation Melanie, after the perfect girl in my arms, the one that’s always going to be with me forever, even when we make it back to Earth, and she’s in a different grade in school than me, where she’ll be around people who might try to remind her that three years is too far apart for a boy-girl relationship.”

  “Ok, Adrian, you can stop narrating.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Turn over on your stomach.”

  It wasn’t just any back rub. Her hands were super-sensitive from that insta-tan she had gotten. Apparently, different types of suns make human skin tingly—the green sun had nearly made it impossible for us to kiss during the day, but the Mira Variable star was way more powerful, and its magical energy had seeped into her body. Each individual muscle in my back squirmed under her fingers. When she got too close to my neck, I cried out in agony. The little hairs were tickling me all the way down my spine. She massaged each individual bone in my back, making my arms and legs twitch and spasm. When she was done, I lay there like a spineless blob with a permanent smile plastered on my face.

  The next morning we woke up to the sound of banging on the bottom of the hatch. We untangled our limbs from each other and rolled over to the pile of stuff that we had put there to block it from opening. I sat on the hatch to help out a little, but the wood was starting to bust apart.

  “Adrian, get away from there!”

  We scrambled over to one of the tower turrets and huddled together. It took awhile for whatever it was to break through the hatch, but eventually all our stuff—the shelf with the hi-tech devices, the mini-fridge, some leftover snow—tumbled into the hole and crashed below. A demo
n’s head rose from the hatch and stared at us with bright red eyes. Melanie covered my eyes quickly.

  “So, I finally meet the humans,” it said in a deep voice. “Don’t be afraid, I won’t use my Demon Trance on you.”

  Melanie let go of my eyes, and we both stared at the creature, who was naked and crouched down next to the hatch. A small brown horn grew off-center on the creature’s bald head. The demon’s face looked like it belonged to one of those teen idols that I had researched on the computer—high cheekbones, freckled nose, neatly groomed eyebrows, thick red lips—but with blood-colored skin that was perfectly smooth. A sparkling earring was imbedded in its left ear. A long spiked tail wrapped around the tower top.

  “What do you want?” I asked.

  “I just wanted to meet you. Don’t be afraid, humans. I’m only a lesser demon. I’m fifteen.”

  “I know what you demons can do,” I said. “I got sick.” A smell like an ancient, dusty fireplace blew over to me and made me gag.

  “That was a mistake. I didn’t know my Demon Trance would make the human boy so sick. Your story is so interesting. I wouldn’t want to ruin it.” The demon hopped over to Melanie and put its hand into her blonde hair. I pushed the creature back immediately, and it nearly fell into the open hatch.

  “I’ll kill you if you touch her.”

  “Why do you love her so much?”

  “I just do.”

  “What does love feel like?” the demon asked, backing away to the far side of the tower top. “I’ve followed your story, but I don’t understand some of it.”

  “Like that’s all there is.”

  “Don’t you feel love for anything?” Melanie asked.

  “Only for the mother planet,” the demon replied. “It feeds us and keeps us warm, and it cradles our newborns until they are ready to emerge.”

  “What do you want from us? Why are you all watching?” Melanie asked.

  “We want to see how the story ends. The two of you took so long to forge a relationship. Now we’re addicted to the story, and we want to see you perform the human mating ritual. What a curious thing that is.”

  Melanie blushed, and my face got warm. I kept forgetting that alien kids were watching every second of our relationship. At first the green fog had given us the illusion of privacy, and then we fooled ourselves into thinking we were alone by not lifting our heads above the stone turrets. How silly. Meanwhile, a bunch of curious teenagers were staying up all night down below waiting for us to do those things that would get my story banned in most parts of the universe. That was so wrong.

  “How would you like it if a whole crowd watched your mating ritual?”

  “Beginning at the age of thirteen,” the demon began, “Our planet’s inhabitants sprinkle DNA on the ground to plant seeds that will sink into the soil and create a living pod. That pod will be nourished by the planet for five years before it’s old enough to burst out and join the living. We witness each other do this all the time. It’s perfectly normal.”

  “Ok, it was nice of you to visit,” I said. “It’s time for you to go.” Even talking about boy/girl stuff without the boys or girls was still awkward.

  “I haven’t finished what I came to do. I came to offer you this, humans.” The demon pulled a small silver cube out of a pouch in its side. “I’ll trade you your five inventions for it—I like to collect discarded inventions. But only if you promise to play better. Then we’ll let you go home.”

  “What is that?” I asked.

  “The Last Invention. It can make any other invention that’s theoretically possible. You just say what invention you want, and it will appear. It’s the last thing that scientists invented before realizing there was nothing left to invent.”

  “Is that what made all our gadgets?”

  “Yes, so many gadgets are made each day that they need to be tossed through wormholes into various dumping grounds in far corners of the universe. It’s fun to look through the trash there and see what inventions people threw away—many of them have never been opened or used. People don’t know how to request the exact invention they want. They say it wrong and are disappointed with what they get.”

  Melanie and I looked at each other with wide eyes. I could already tell what she was thinking—if we had one of those silver cubes, we could easily use it to make some invention that could blow up this whole planet and then take us home, where we could use it to rule Earth (Ok, maybe she wasn’t thinking that, exactly). That thing could make anything that was possible in the whole universe!

  “Ok, deal,” Melanie said, before I could even open my mouth.

  The demon casually tossed the small silver cube into Melanie’s hand. Then it hopped through the hatch and collected our five devices from the floor below where they had fallen. When the demon hopped back up, its horn was slightly longer. It flashed us a big smile with perfectly sparkling teeth.

  “Those angels might come up here and tell you that I’m a liar. They never say nice things about me.”

  “Are you a liar?” I asked.

  “I am a liar, but it’s still not a nice thing to say. Have fun, don’t forget to read the instructions.” The demon tossed Melanie a small piece of paper folded into a dense square. Then the creature waved and jumped into the hatch. I heard footsteps for awhile, and then everything was quiet. Melanie and I quickly dove onto our blanket. She gently caressed The Last Invention while I unfolded the instructions.

  The Last Invention

  The Last Invention is a device that can create any conceivable invention in the known universe, from a stone wheel all the way to the Historical Particle Tracker XJ5000. It is called The Last Invention because once you possess it, you will never need to buy any mechanical item again, ever. The Last Invention has nearly unlimited potential, restricted only by your own creativity and powers of concise communication. If it’s possible to construct using quark-based particles, The Last Invention can make it.

  Warning: The Last Invention draws its power and raw materials from invisible matter called Quintessence—a type of dark energy which accounts for 74% of the known mass of the universe. Small reception bars, of progressively larger size, are shown on the tiny digital display of The Last Invention. If you have less than three bars, I would be afraid. Very afraid. Quintessence is necessary for the expansion of the universe. Overuse of The Last Invention on a universal scale would eventually cause the momentum of the universe’s expansion to slow, stop, and then reverse. Eventually, the universe will shrink back into the tiny dot that it came from. Create responsibly, and enjoy The Last Invention!

  Please note: The Last Invention cannot create People or Prose to a perfect degree due to fundamental limitations in Quantum Mechanics and Artificial Intelligence. While you can attempt to create such things, you might be disappointed in the results. Remember the two P’s and you won’t be disappointed!

  How to Use

  The Last Invention has a class 9 learning chip installed inside of it, so whenever you want something, just tell The Last Invention, and it will make it for you.

  Recycling

  Unfortunately, you will not be able to recycle most devices made by The Last Invention due to a molecular shift in the quintessence particles. To minimize wasted inventions, think very carefully about what you request from The Last Invention. During testing, irresponsible users were witnessed creating dozens of inventions just to find the exact one they wanted. This type of behavior results in a dwindling of Quintessence, and it requires our local sanitation department to work harder discarding the unwanted inventions in distant garbage dumps. If you find yourself with a localized shortage of Quintessence, seek out dense, highly evolved organic material and convert it into Quintessence to replenish this natural resource in your part of the universe.

  “Let’s try it,” Melanie said.

  “What should we ask for?”

  “I know. Last Invention, make me an electric razor.”

  “Creating The Electric Shaving Device X
BL 4,” the device replied in a computerized voice. A series of beeps and humming noises came from the tiny cube, and it flashed all sorts of colors. An electric razor appeared in Melanie’s hands. She opened the package and tossed the instructions over the side of the tower. Then she leaned close and shaved above my lips.

  “I had a mustache?”

  “Sort of.”

  “What about a hair cutting device?” I slapped my long hair, which was down to my shoulders.

  “I like that. It’s a little feminine.”

  “Ok, let me try.” I grabbed The Last Invention from Melanie. I turned around and whispered my request into it. Then I spun around and gave her a diamond ring. She put it on her finger and hugged me.

  “My turn,” Melanie sang, grabbing the device back. “Make a pillow and blanket.” A pillow and blanket appeared in Melanie’s hand. My heart sank. Now we wouldn’t need to cuddle anymore under our shared blanket. I pretended not to care and grabbed the silver cube back.

  “Make me a Playstation Portable,” I said. The device grinded, beeped, and flashed for awhile, and it finally spit the video game machine into my hand. Melanie suddenly stopped smiling. She snatched The Last Invention from my hand.

  “Make me an MP3 player with every Megaforce and Led Zeppelin song on it.” A music player appeared in Melanie’s lap. At first she couldn’t get the plastic packaging open, but then she whispered something else into The Last Invention and a device called The WrapRage Eliminator appeared in a paper bag. It looked like a futuristic chainsaw. She used that to get the MP3 player out of its plastic bubble. It wasn’t long before she put headphones on and began swaying her head to music. My heart sank a little bit more. Now she could rock out to music on her own blanket and pillow.