by Adrian
“Did you learn that at your old school?”
“I read about myths and legends for a hobby,” I said, which was actually the truth for once. “Back then they didn’t say that the sun came up. They would say that dawn’s rosy finger touched the sky. And they didn’t say somebody had blue eyes.” I reached out and touched Melanie’s face, causing her to gasp. “They said that her eyes were as deep as the wine-dark sea.” I saw a tear form at the corner of Melanie’s eyes and roll down her cheek. I had programmed the touch of my skin to “Beyond Enchantment,” meaning anybody would turn into a quivering puddle of helplessness when I touched their skin—even go unconscious if I touched them for long enough. I pulled my hand away when I realized she got close to fainting again.
My lips were my greatest feature, though. I had programmed them to “Paralysis on contact with other lips,” the highest sensation it would allow me to choose. That meant if I did ever get to kiss her on the lips, she would lose all muscular function and fall into a heap in my arms. But she would be totally awake and able to use her mind. (The HELP feature on the Body Builder was good at explaining all this stuff to me). Ok, maybe I overdid it, but I figured that I could always reprogram myself later if something went wrong.
My 7,231 leg hairs tingled with excitement at the thought of holding Melanie’s warm body in my arms. I can’t even tell you about other feelings I had—new sensations that were messed-up and totally alien. But I decided that all I would go after was a kiss, and maybe a hug. She was way too perfect for anything more. I would serve her drinks and worship her, and that would be it. After all, we were both immortal gods now. There was plenty of time for all the adult stuff down the road after we were out of high school.
Still, I wanted to try out my new lips, so I picked up one of her hands in mine and said, “Do you know that the Ancient Greeks invented the hand kiss, like the French do today. Watch.” I kissed her hands, and at once her body twitched, and she leaned face first into the Salisbury snot platter.
“You’re so romantic,” she said with a muffled voice. “I can’t move my neck all of the sudden.”
Success! Not as good as a lip-to-lip kiss, but the touch of my lips on her hand made her lose muscular function in her neck. I pictured our first-date lip kiss again. Melanie would fall helplessly into my arms, where I could carry her off and protect her forever.
“Excuse me, young man, can you come with me please,” a voice said above me as I lifted Melanie’s head out of the tater tots. I looked up. A man wearing a suit and tie towered over me. I smiled and tried to look innocent, dropping Melanie’s head back into the tater tots.
I had to do some serious explaining in the principal’s office. Mr. Varick reprimanded me for enrolling myself in high school without the proper identification, parental signatures, proof of disease vaccinations, physical, etc. He handed me ten pages of forms to fill out and sent me home. I threw all the papers in the green dumpster, and then I walked home. What did it matter? I had made my date with Melanie, and now I could call her, visit her at home, and go out with her at night. I didn’t really need to go to high school at all—I would just tell her that my parents enrolled me in a private school after finding out the high school’s math program wasn’t that good or something.
When I got home, I ran up to my room and opened the Body Builder. I made sure to hit SAVE BODY CONFIGURATION, so I wouldn’t have to reprogram each feature every time I wanted to turn into Logan. Then I hit the MASTER RESET button, which transformed me back into Adrian. My life was perfect now. Whenever I wanted to be Logan, I could just press a button. And then I could turn back into Adrian by pressing another button. Leading two lives was way more fun than one.
That night I turned myself into Logan and called Melanie just to make sure she was still up for our date on Friday. It was Tuesday, and there was no way I was going three whole days without seeing her.
“That’s weird, the caller ID said it was Adrian calling me,” Melanie said.
Duh. Why hadn’t I thought of that?
“Uh, who’s Adrian?” I asked.
“Just some boy I used to tutor.”
“Oh, why aren’t you tutoring him anymore?” I was curious to know how she really felt about me.
“He got all weird on me. Nice kid, but weird. You don’t know what it’s like to have some twelve-year-old madly in love with you. And it’s like he lives in his own world.”
My heart sank. She hated the real me and always had. She only came over because Mom was paying her to teach me.
“Let’s stop talking about him,” I said. “Are we still going to the movies on Friday?”
“Sure.”
“Good. My mom is threatening to put me in private school because of what happened with Principal Varick, and she doesn’t like the math program at the high school.”
“That’s awful! Can’t you change her mind?”
“Well, I can still see you after school and stuff. Like, do you want me to come over tomorrow?”
“My mom is usually home. She’ll kill me if I have a date over during the week. Can I come to your place?”
“No, my mom’s home too,” I lied. “Let’s meet at the cemetery.”
“What?”
“The cemetery is quiet, and nobody bothers you there. We can read the headstones together.”
“Ok, but try to get your mom to change her mind. Please, Logan.”
Dad came to visit me before in my cell. He admitted that he never really knew what was going on in my life. He promised that we would do more stuff together when I got out. I don’t think he and Mom are getting along right now. She blames him for neglecting me.
Dad gave me a big hug. When I was in his arms, I remembered how he used to hold me all the time when I was little. He used to throw me into the air and give me super-tuck-ins at bedtime that made me dizzy. The smell of aftershave on his neck used to tickle my nostrils. I don’t know why I always notice other people’s smells. It’s always been that way. I’m probably a pile of b.o. with legs, and I don’t even notice. That would be ironic. Mr. Greenbaum taught us that word in English. I wonder what he’s teaching the class now.
After Dad left, the nurse came in and gave me a sponge bath. It’s really stupid that I’m not even allowed to take a shower by myself. What do they think I’m going to do, kill myself with a bar of Ivory Soap? At least the nurse looks like Pamela Anderson.
“How are you today, Adrian?” she asked. (She smells like one of those perfume samples they give away in magazines, in case you were wondering.)
“I’m a prisoner, how can I be doing good?”
“You can always find some good thing to think about, you just have to try.”
“Like what?”
“Well, you weren’t hurt in that fight you had. You could have been hurt badly.”
“Good, I wish I was dead.”
“Look deep within your heart and ask yourself if you really mean that,” the nurse said. “Often we say things without soul-searching.”
“If I looked I would say worse things.”
“When I look at you, I see a nice boy who got mixed up in something that got out of control. Why don’t you tell me what really happened that day.”
I was beginning to wonder if the Pamela-Anderson-nurse-lady was really the psychiatrist, and the hairy-mole-lady was really the nurse. The old switcheroo trick, designed to get me to talk when my guard was down. Well, it better not be true, because if mole-lady ever tries to give me a sponge-bath, there’s going to be some serious puking around here.
Anyway, back to the story. I’m up to the horrible part…
After I hung up with Melanie, I decided to look at the last remaining features of the Body Builder. There was some really neat stuff that I had ignored when I was rushing to build Logan the night before. While Mom was cooking dinner, I lay on my bed and scrolled through the remaining icons. All of them were super powers, different from the normal body parts and features: “EXTENDED JUMP, EYE BLAST RAY
, SUPERSONIC RUN, FATAL WEAKNESS, RUBBER LIMBS, MUTANT FORM, CAPTURED SOULS, DEMONIC TUSK, DRAGONHEAD, DRAGONWINGS, DRAGONBREASTS, LIZARD TAIL, TOXIC BREATH, etc.” They were for transforming yourself into a comic book superhero, or maybe another species.
“37 features remaining to program until final body build,” the lady’s voice said.
Just then Dad opened the door and said, “Time for dinner, Adrian.” He closed the door, but then quickly slammed it open again and shouted, “Who are you?”
I was still Logan!
I quickly pressed the MASTER RESET button and transformed myself back into Adrian.
“Sorry, Dad,” I’m just fooling around with a costume for an immigration project in social studies.” Too bad there’s no televised award for lying. I could give such a good speech.
He blinked and rubbed his eyes a few times, then slowly shut the door, staring at me strangely. “Well wash up, your mom made Salisbury steak.”
After dinner, I transformed myself back into Logan and lay on my bed (with my night table placed in front of my door to block it) and fiddled with the super powers. I decided to set them all to DEACTIVATED. Sure, it would be cool to have a beam of lava-heat come out of my eyes, or an ice blast, but what if I accidentally burnt a hole through Melanie, or froze her? I would never forgive myself.
“One feature—FATAL WEAKNESS—remaining until final body build,” the female voice said.
“What’s Fatal Weakness?” I asked.
“One feature—FATAL WEAKNESS—remaining until final body build,” the female voice said.
I pressed the HELP feature. The lady explained that FATAL WEAKNESS was for programming yourself to have one flaw so that somebody could easily kill you. Like I could’ve set my fatal weakness to PAPER CLIP, so I would melt into a puddle like the Wicked Witch of the West when somebody showed me a paper clip. Wait, should the first “the” get capitalized in the Wicked Witch of the West? I don’t think so because it isn’t the title of a story, it’s a character, but I’m not sure. Mr. Greenbaum, where are you when I need you? I don’t know why I care—it’s not like I’m getting graded on this narration.
I didn’t get FATAL WEAKNESS at all. Why would anybody ever program a weakness for themselves? Like, if Superman was creating himself from scratch, would he want to make it so that Kryptonite could kill him? That would be pretty dumb. So I set that to DEACTIVATED like all the other special powers, just to make the lady happy.
“All features have been programmed. Press OK to complete final body building process,” the lady’s voice said. I pressed the OK button on the screen, and at once I changed back into Adrian. Confused, I looked at the screen, only to see a green progress bar with the words, “Creating body. Please wait.”
My palms started sweating. I didn’t get how it could be creating the body while I still remained in my old little boy body. I examined myself all over, but not a thing had changed about me. I was boring old Adrian, without even one single leg hair—just some dumb peach fuzz. I looked at the Body Builder screen. A loud beep went off when the progress bar reached all the way to 100%.
“Thank you for using the Body Builder. The body you programmed has been created. Deactivating.” The screen went black, and the device became a lifeless plastic lump. My heart started pounding with dread. I was still my twelve-year-old self.
“What do you mean body created?” I asked, closing and opening the Body Builder again. Nothing. All that I could see in the black screen was the reflection of my little kid face. The food in my stomach was gurgling and ready to come back up. I had made the dream date with Melanie and now I couldn’t even go to it! That Ricky guy totally ripped me off by taking my dollar. I threw the Body Builder at the box I had carried it home in. Chunks of dried mud fell off when it turned over. A small white square slipped out from between the bottom flaps of the cardboard box.
I dove for the square. It was just a piece of paper folded over a million times, like a paper football. I quickly unfolded it, until it became one giant piece of crinkly paper. The title said “The Body Builder Instructions. Read carefully before using. Rated RM for Really Mature.”
Thank you for acquiring the Body Builder. This device will allow you to create a living, breathing creature—with over 2000 fully programmable features. The device will initially use your body as a model for the creature that you will create. A laser scan will present a picture of your unencumbered body for programming. You may then choose from 2000 attributes and begin tweaking the image to a desired size and shape. Please note: even though your body is a model for the final creature, you are not limited to features from your own species. As many as 100 extra-species features will be available to program, depending on power availability. There are certain guaranteed exceptions. For example, if you are from the planet Earth, you will not be able to program the PHANTOM POWER CORE feature, and if you are from the planet Asekz 13, you will not be able to program the PINKY TOE feature.
I looked down at the bottom of the huge page, and that’s when the true horror of what I had done dawned on me.
…Final body creation will not occur until all features have been programmed. In order to achieve the correct symmetry and balance, every feature will be tested on your body first. Only after you have set a value for all 2000 features will the companion body be created. You must confirm this by pressing the OK button. After you hit the OK button, a progress bar will appear while the body is being created. After the progress bar fills up, the Body Builder will deactivate and be rendered useless. The creature you have created will appear within two miles of your location and instantly begin making its way toward you…
Warning: The Uncertainty Principle from Quantum Mechanics combined with the Butterfly Effect from Chaos Theory dictate that perfect body re-creation is unpredictable and imperfect, particularly in the cranial region. Expect the new creature to be slightly “off.”
Mega-Warning: On nights when the moon is full, the creature may take on additional characteristics beyond those that were programmed by The Body Builder—specifically, traits of the undead. For example, it may have the strong desire to EAT FLESH! (If your planet does not have any moons, ignore the Mega-Warning).
I immediately threw up in the muddy box—a chunky day’s worth of Salisbury steaks. I put my head between my knees and cried as long puke drips bungeed out of my mouth. My plan had been perfect. I was so happy, for once in my life. Now Logan was somewhere out there making his way toward my house! What an idiot I had been to finish programming all the features—if I just left one out, I could’ve fiddled with my own features forever. Now my plans with Melanie were ruined, and some high-school-aged freakish Frankenstein (though thoroughly attractive) was out to get me! What would he do to me when he found me?
I had to find Ricky right away and get another Body Builder. I snatched a dollar off my dresser, tip-toed downstairs, grabbed a jacket, and carefully snuck out the front door. The streets were filled with shadows and night insects. The moon was only a sliver in the sky. All I could hear was my breathing and sneaker steps as I bolted through the deserted roads toward the cemetery. I looked behind me every few seconds to see if I could spot Logan’s glowing blue eyes—every snapping twig made me think he was after me. Finally, I saw the curved iron arch spanning the entrance to the cemetery.
When I got inside I tried to find the path that I had gone down to get to Ricky’s moving sale. Had he and that green pig named Oinkleberry moved already? Soon I found the statue near the overgrown path that led to the caretaker’s cottage, but when I tried to find the opening it wasn’t there. The faint moonlight was playing tricks on me—every dark spot near every bush seemed liked it could be the path, but when I tried to go in, I just got scratched by dead tree branches. I turned around to look at the sign on the statue, and that’s when I saw him. Logan. Standing on the pedestal in front of the armless statue, his blue eyes glowing in the darkness. He leapt on me and knocked me to the ground.
“Wuss,” he said, his hot bre
ath hitting my face. “You think you’re so powerful because you created me. You’re a weakling. I could snap your neck like a twig right now if I wanted to. But I don’t even have to. Melanie’s mine now, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Don’t you dare touch her,” I said, trying to push Logan off me. He was too strong, and I remained pinned to the ground. Logan put his hand around my neck, and a rush of adrenaline surged through my body. I felt lightheaded.
“Now you know what my touch feels like on your skin,” Logan said. “You programmed me this way—the feel of my skin is beyond human comprehension. You’ll lose consciousness in a minute.”
“Wha do yoo wan?” My speech slurred as I faded in and out of consciousness.
“I haven’t decided yet,” he said. “I want Melanie, that’s for sure. But there’s more.”
Logan picked me up and carried me through the cemetery. My legs, arms, and head hung down as limply as cooked spaghetti. Barely awake, I watched familiar gravestones bob by as he took me somewhere. The hooting owls, crickets, and buzzing insects kept chiming, as if it was any other normal night. It was just another death in the cemetery to them—some crazed, lunatic teen idol carrying Adrian to his doom.
“You just wanted a kiss from her, how pathetic,” Logan’s gravelly voice said as he walked. “Well, I’m setting my sights a little higher. Melanie and I are going to do all that inappropriate stuff you learned about in health class. She’ll be putty in my arms with these fantastic lips you gave me. One kiss, and then…But now I can’t decide what will give me more pleasure—to kill you, or to watch you suffer, knowing you inflicted me on her.” He threw me down, and I soared through the darkness. Then everything went black.
When I woke up I saw a long rectangle of light above me. My arms and legs felt weak, and I had to strain hard just to move them a little. When I turned on my side I got a face full of dirt. I spit out the gritty sludge. A worm wriggled around in it. Disgusted, I kept spitting until every last dirt molecule was out of my mouth. That’s when my sleepy mind cleared up and remembered what had happened the night before. Logan. The Body Builder. Melanie! A wave of anger splashed through me when I remembered how he had vowed to take my girlfriend away from me.