by Mark Young
Then he settled in as the data flowed into his brain. He could feel the tingle as his nerve endings sparked. He wondered if what Rotwang had said was true—that he was getting bigger. He didn’t often look into a mirror. But the thought of getting bigger felt right. Why not? Didn’t other kids his age get taller, or wider? Why couldn’t he? After all, the brain is kind of like a muscle, and when you use muscles, they get stronger—and bigger.
The download from Selena took several hours, and when she’d finished, she started chatting again.
Now that we’re done, maybe you could tell me a little bit about the world outside this room? she asked. Right before I died, they invented gelato.… That’s ice cream. Do they still have ice cream?
“Rotwang! Detach me!” Odifin yelled.
Rotwang, as usual, was wearing his virtual reality goggles. He slipped them up onto the top of his head.
“One second,” he said. “I need to plug my goggles in to recharge.”
“Rotwang, unplug me right now!” Odifin demanded, as Selena droned on and on about ice cream. Helpless, Odifin watched as his assistant searched the walls for an outlet.
“Look to your right, you dolt! There’s a control panel there!” Odifin said.
Rotwang moved to the control panel. “There’s no outlet here,” he said. “Just a lot of brain names. And a port that says Select All.”
“Wait, what?” Odifin asked. “Say that again.”
Rotwang nodded. “There’s no outlet here,” he repeated.
“No, about that other thing you said,” Odifin hinted.
“Just a lot of brain names?” Rotwang tried.
“No, the other other thing!” Odifin shouted.
“Oh, the port that says Select All?” Rotwang asked.
“Yes!” Odifin said. “Has that port been there all along?” Odifin asked.
Rotwang shrugged.
“Don’t just stand there! Connect me to it!” Odifin demanded.
Rotwang obeyed, detaching Odifin from Selena’s jar, holding the connector as they went over to the control panel, and then plugging the connector into the Select All port.
Immediately Odifin’s brain began to tingle and sizzle and hum more than it ever had before, as the data from every brain in the Brain Bank poured into his cells.
“This is awesome, Rotwang!” Odifin yelled over the noise that only he could hear.
Rotwang nodded and went off to search for a plug to charge his goggles.
For hours information flowed, filling Odifin with facts and figures, names and places, dates and times, formulas and equations. For someone else it might have been too much to handle, but it only made Odifin thirsty for more knowledge.
“More, more, more!” Odifin cried out, even though all he had to do to get more information was stay plugged in.
Eventually, though, Odifin began to notice an unpleasant sensation. Brains don’t have pain receptors, but he felt pressure—as if his membranes were pressing against the walls and top of his jar.
“Rotwang, what’s happening?” Odifin asked.
There was no response. His eyeball stalks twisted around to see Rotwang, asleep and snoring on the floor, with his virtual reality glasses still on.
“ROTWANG!” Odifin yelled.
Rotwang jumped, and his glasses slid off. Then his eyes got wide.
“Master, you’re HUGE!” he said. “You’re busting out of your jar!”
“Excellent!” Odifin said. “Rotwang, get me out of this tiny jar!”
“But won’t you die?” Rotwang gulped.
“No,” Odifin replied. “Mother put me inside this jar to keep me from getting squashed, or dusty, or bruised. The fluid keeps me from drying out, of course, but I don’t need this jar. It’s just a silly safety measure. Get me out, now!”
Rotwang glanced at the speaker box on the jar. “What about talking?”
“Do I have to explain everything?” Odifin asked. “We use the animation fluid to connect me to the data panel on my jar, which acts like a voice box and connects to the speaker I use to talk and to the port that lets me connect to the Brain Bank.”
Rotwang stared at him blankly.
“The animation fluid is the goo! The goo in my jar!” Odifin yelled, exasperated. “Now roll that metal cart over here and detach the jar from the table. Then GET ME OUT OF HERE!”
Rotwang unscrewed the jar from the table, removed the lid, and then turned the jar upside down and shook it.
“Gently, Rotwang, gently! And over the cart, please! I don’t want to end up on the floor. It’s covered with germs!” Odifin cried. “And don’t forget to put my original jar on the cart too. I need it.”
Rotwang held the jar in one hand and pulled the cart over with the other. He turned the jar upside down again and shook it.
With a slimy, slurping sound Odifin slid free from the jar and onto the cart, dripping with goo. Rotwang quickly put the jar on the cart too. The goo splashed all over the top of the cart but was still touching the jar’s data panel and port, which was still plugged into the room’s control panel through the connector.
Odifin felt the same and yet so, so different. He gazed around the room. How clear the world looked when he wasn’t gazing through a jar full of goo! He stretched his eyestalks to get a better look at Rotwang.
“Wow, Rotwang. I didn’t know you had so many pimples!” Odifin exclaimed.
“Uh, thanks?” Rotwang replied, sounding surprised but also proud.
All the while, facts and figures, names and places, dates and times, formulas and equations continued to flow into Odifin’s memory banks.
“Rotwang, disconnect me from the control panel for a minute,” he said, and his assistant obeyed.
Suddenly it was quiet for Odifin. “Now I can really think,” he said. His synapses sizzled as an idea formed in his head. “As good as it feels to be out of the jar, Mother was right. I will dry up without my goo—I mean, animation fluid,” he told Rotwang. “We will need to borrow a big fish tank from the monster lab for me to use. Of course, it won’t have a speaker, or a port, but that won’t be a problem. We can attach my old jar to the tank since it acts like my voice box. Then I can find a way to wirelessly connect to the Brain Bank so I don’t need a port. Plus I’ll need bigger speakers, and they’ll need to be wireless too. Rotwang, you use wireless speakers with your video game system, right?”
“Uh-huh,” Rotwang replied.
“I’ll need those,” Odifin said.
Rotwang frowned. “But—”
“And we’ll need some nanobots,” Odifin went on. “So you’ll have to sneak into the robotics lab for me.”
“But—”
“NOW, Rotwang!”
With a burst of speed, Rotwang pushed the cart, with Odifin on it, out of the Brain Bank. The hallways of the school were dark, and there was no sign of Stubbins Crouch, the custodian. First Odifin and Rotwang went to the monster lab to get the fish tank. Tiny monsters snored in locked cages, but the equipment closet wasn’t locked, and Odifin spotted an empty aquarium tank that was the perfect size.
“Put it on the cart, Rotwang,” Odifin instructed.
Rotwang rolled Odifin—and the cart and fish tank—to the next destination: Dr. Rozika’s robotics lab. Odifin scanned the room and spotted a locked vault.
“He keeps the nanobots in there,” Odifin said.
Rotwang tried to open it. “It’s locked.”
“Roll me closer,” Odifin told him, and Rotwang did. “It’s a retinal scanner,” Odifin said. “Only Dr. Rozika can open it. Unless…”
Odifin’s brain sizzled with all the knowledge he’d accumulated. “Rotwang, open up the panel on the side of the vault. We can bypass the retinal scan with some simple coding. Do as I say…”
Rotwang followed Odifin’s instructions exactly, and the vault opened. Rotwang removed a small metal box containing the nanobots.
“Next we need your speakers!” Odifin said. “And then we can put all of this together in the chemistry lab.
”
Rotwang yawned. “It’s so late!”
“No time to sleep, Rotwang!” Odifin yelled. “Anyway, I know you stay up all night playing video games sometimes, so what are you complaining about?”
Odifin had never felt so confident before. Or so smart. And that made him feel alive! More alive than he’d ever felt in his whole life.
He barked out orders to Rotwang so fast that the boy could barely follow them.
“First we program the nanobots to act as wireless conductors,” he said. “Then we add them to the goo to make super goo that’s able to connect wirelessly to your wireless speakers and anything else with wireless capabilities. We’ll attach your wireless speakers to the tank and keep everything on the metal cart so that you can wheel me around. We’ll have to figure out a way to motorize it, but… No. Instead we can create a wireless receiver that you can plug into the control panel in the Brain Bank. Then I can wirelessly download data from the Brain Bank day and night from wherever I am!”
“What about class?” Rotwang asked.
“Nobody will miss me,” Odifin said. “Nobody ever notices me anyway. But they will, once I win the Brilliant Brains Trivia Competition!”
They worked through the night, and when the sun rose, Odifin was floating inside the fish tank, inside super goo that Rotwang had made with Odifin’s instructions. The chemicals added to keep the nanobots charged had added streaks of glowing blue to the goo, which reminded Odifin of lightning.
“This is brilliant!” Odifin said. “I feel truly amazing, Rotwang! Rotwang? Rotwang!”
His assistant was snoring again.
“Wake up, you lazy bones!” Odifin scolded.
At that moment Professor Snollygoster swept into the lab in his white lab coat.
“Good morning, boys,” he said. “You’re a bit early for class, aren’t you?”
“Just doing some extra studying, Professor,” Odifin replied.
“Odifin, is there something different about you?” Snollygoster asked. “You look… bigger. And is that new goo?”
“Yes,” Odifin replied. “I call it… super bluegoo!”
“Has a nice ring to it,” Snollygoster said.
“Yes, it does,” Odifin said. “Rotwang, let’s go!”
They exited the chemistry lab.
“Where are we going now?” Rotwang asked.
“Back to the Brain Bank,” Odifin said.
Rotwang grumbled but he did as he was told. Odifin floated in the super bluegoo as Rotwang pushed the metal cart back to the library. Then Rotwang plugged the wireless-capable super bluegoo receiver into the Select All port.
Odifin felt his neurons bursting with tingles. “It’s working!” he said. “I estimate that the receiver has a range of about four-point-eight meters, so we’ll have to stay here in the Brain Bank for now, Rotwang. If anyone tries to come in, tell them to get lost.”
Rotwang yawned. “Yes, Master,” he said, and then he curled up on the floor and began to snore.
The information flooded into Odifin again: facts and figures, names and places, dates and times, formulas and equations. His membranes started to pulse.
Excellent! he thought. I won’t stop until my memory banks contain every iota of knowledge in Franken-Sci High!
And as he absorbed that knowledge, his brain slowly began to grow even bigger.…
CHAPTER 6 An Overgrown Ball of Glop
“So, Debbie, how’s it going?” Newton asked, sliding onto a stool next to Debbie Danning in the chemistry lab.
“Fine,” Debbie said. “What’s up?”
“Oh, you know. I realized that with my amnesia and everything, I don’t know a lot about the other kids in the school,” Newton said, trying to sound casual and friendly. “You and Donnie, where are you guys from?”
“Seattle, Washington,” Debbie replied, and Newton stared at her blankly. “In the United States.”
“Right! I’ve heard of those,” Newton said. “And you guys were born in a regular hospital, right?”
Debbie made a face. “What kind of question is that?”
“Just a very normal, friendly question,” Newton replied. “I mean, being born is a pretty important thing, right?”
“I guess,” Debbie said. “But we weren’t born in a hospital.”
A flame of hope rose in Newton. “No?”
“Well, Dad was all nervous, and when he tried to teleport Mom to the hospital, we ended up in the rain forest of Borneo,” Debbie explained. “Mom is still mad about that. But luckily, Donnie and I came out okay.” Debbie pressed a button on her tablet, and a screen flickered in midair.
“That’s me and Donnie right after we were born. I was born five minutes earlier, so I’m older,” she explained.
“Right,” Newton said. The screen showed a woman holding two babies wrapped in leaves near a giant flower, but there was no sign of a pod. Newton tried another line of questioning.
“So, are you a good swimmer? Like, so good that you can breathe underwater?” he asked.
Debbie rolled her eyes. “Listen, Newton, if you want to ask me out, just ask me. You don’t have to lead with a bunch of silly questions.”
“Ask you out?” Newton started to blush. “No. I mean, sure, that would be… but—that’s not what I—bye!”
He hurried away and sat next to Theremin.
“How did it go?” Theremin asked.
“She thought I was asking her out,” Newton said.
“So you didn’t find out anything?” Theremin asked.
“Well, I learned that she and Donnie were born in a rain forest,” Newton said.
Theremin tapped his tablet screen. “Hmm. That makes six students born in some kind of forest, three on a space station, and two in an alternate universe.”
“Any pods yet?” Newton asked.
“Nope,” Theremin replied. “And no cases of amnesia, or long-lost relatives, or amphibious traits, like you have.”
Newton sighed. “This isn’t working, Theremin. I think we’ve talked to almost everyone in the school at this point.”
“ ‘Almost’ doesn’t mean this is over,” Theremin said.
“No,” Newton said. “I just wish Professor Flubitus would tell me. Or Mumtaz! I know she knows something. If she hadn’t confiscated Gustav’s mind-reading device, I’d try it on her.”
Newton slumped in his seat.
“Maybe you don’t have to read her mind,” Theremin said. “She’s got files on every student, right?”
“Shelly and I tried sneaking into Mumtaz’s office once before,” Newton said. “That’s the first time I camouflaged. I didn’t even realize I had done it.”
“Oh yeah,” Theremin said. “That was before you got better at it.”
“I did get better at it, didn’t I?” Newton said. “I can control it more now. I could camouflage myself and sneak into her office again, and this time it might work!”
“I’ll go with you,” Theremin said. “Or Shelly or Higgy will. You shouldn’t do this alone.”
Newton shook his head. “No, you guys have done enough. I don’t want you to get in trouble. Besides, I thought Shelly had set up a study session for you guys at the library tonight.”
“Yeah, well, we were going to go to the Brain Bank, but Gustav told me that something weird is going on there. Rotwang won’t let anyone in,” Theremin said.
“Rotwang?” Newton asked.
Theremin nodded. “Yeah. Probably Odifin wants to hog all the brains for himself. Typical. So Shelly’s doing this thing where she’s looking up questions from the last few trivia contests, and we’re going to test ourselves. Are you sure you don’t want to come?”
Newton shook his head. “I really want to figure out who my relative is.”
“Sure, Newton,” Theremin said. “But just remember, no matter what happens, I’ll always be your robot bro.”
“Ro-bro,” Newton said, combining the words “robot” and “bro” for fun, and he smiled for the first time
all day.
“Yeah. Ro-bro,” Theremin said. “I like it!”
* * *
That night, after the sun had gone down and the school was quiet, Newton dropped down through Higgy’s secret entrance to the school’s underground tunnels. Higgy had a trapdoor hidden under his bunk bed that he used in order to go on midnight snack runs to the cafeteria (among other things). Newton walked in a tunnel until he spotted the grate leading to Mumtaz’s office above him, and stopped. He tried to sense if there was anyone in the room. He didn’t feel that tingly feeling he got when there was danger, so he pushed up the grate, pulled himself up, and went inside.
No one was there, so he stood up and quietly replaced the grate. He moved toward Mumtaz’s desk, where she accessed the school database using a hologram. He waved his hand in the air, and a hologram of the database appeared.
“Yes!” Newton cheered in a whisper. Then he stopped. What if someone walks in? he thought. He knew what he had to do. Camouflage, he told himself, and he closed his eyes, concentrating. When he opened them, he saw that his body was shadowy gray, and patterned with the shelves and objects on the wall behind him.
Now stay! he thought. He hadn’t had too much practice with camouflaging himself on command, but he knew he could keep it going as long as he kept thinking about it, especially if he was scared.
Newton looked back at the hologram. He took his ID and swiped it through the hologram projector. That’s what Mumtaz had done to call up his file on his very first day.
ENTER PASSWORD
“Rats!” Newton said. “I should have known there would be a password.”
He thought for a minute. Then he typed in Mumtaz.
INCORRECT
He tried again. Birdlady.
INCORRECT
He was about to take a guess when he felt a tingle.
Mumtaz is coming! he thought. Still camouflaged, he waved his hand in the air again to get rid of the database. Then he took a step away from the desk as the doorknob turned, and Mumtaz entered the room. Newton tried not to breathe, and his heart was pounding.
The headmistress was talking on her wireless headset.