Inventions

The Danson racetrack. Again.

This time, I'd had to be the one pedaling Inventions' car all the way to the track. He'd insisted he wanted as little muscle fatigue as possible going into this race. Not that I minded; as amazing as it felt to pedal the car last time, I was convinced that my synthetic Flychamp oil made it even smoother. The steering, on the other hand, took a bit more . . . getting used to than last time. It didn't help that the body was even longer, with a more gradual taper in the rear and a pointer nose.

I gave up trying to maneuver the car precisely, and pushed it the last few meters into its starting position. Inventions gave the car one more once-over, like a worried parent making sure his little darling didn't have a hair out of place. "Now where's the old bucket of bones I'm racing against?"

I scanned the horizon, and picked out a narrow green oncoming car. From this distance, it didn't look any different from the Skeleton Monster's car the last time they'd raced. I pointed. "Here he comes."

His car was quite far away, but seemed to be approaching pretty fast. He must have been pedaling the car at full speed. I winced. This was a pretty harsh reminder that the Skeleton Monster didn't have to worry about fatigue. Still, he was far enough away that it'd be the better part of a minute before he arrived. I looked around lazily . . .

. . . and when my gaze landed in the opposite direction, my heart nearly leapt into my throat. It was her! Leslie! What on Earth was she doing here, at the Danson racetrack?!

I forgot all else and bolted toward her. Behind me, I heard Inventions' voice say "Where are you — oh. Hmph. Kids." I ignored it. I would have ignored the President of the United States right at that moment. All that mattered was running to the most ravishingly beautiful woman in the world, the woman I was actually going to go on a date with tonight.

I stopped short, trying and failing to sound casual. "Leslie! Um, hi! What, what are you doing here? I mean, um . . . here?"

She smirked. I couldn't tell if it was a good smirk or a bad smirk. "I hear your boss is having a big pedal-powered car race."

"Oh! Uh . . ." How had she known? There was no announcement. Who told —

The puzzlement on my face must have given me away. She said, "Inventions told me about it, when I stopped by his lab last night."

I felt the bottom go out of my stomach. For a moment, I couldn't look her in the eye. Were she and he . . . an item now? Had I completely lost any shot I would have had with her?

She only shook her head. "I put on my best outfit, and the most seductive airs I could muster; and none of it even fazed him. Either he's got the hottest girlfriend in the world, or his tastes don't lean toward women at all."

Thank goodness! Oh, er, I mean, how terrible for you, my wonderful darling. I blinked to force myself back to the present. "Actually, I've never seen him take a romantic interest in anyone — female, male, or otherwise. He might be asexual, or just married to his work."

She nodded. "A pity." Then she glanced over my shoulder, and her brow knit while she squinted. An instant later, her eyes popped wide open and her index finger snapped forward. "What on Earth is that?!"

I looked where she'd pointed. "Oh, that's the other pedal-powered car in the ra—"

"Not the car," she said, "The driver!"

The driver was, indeed, emerging from his cockpit, bones a-clattering. I said, "That's the Skeleton Monster."

Her jaw dropped. "I . . ." she began. "I'd heard the name, but I thought it was just a nickname, for like a really thin bony guy or something. But this . . . this thing. I had no idea he was an actual skeleton!"

"Inventions can tell you all about it," I said, walking her over to the two of them. "Or maybe George will tell you himself. Word of advice, he hates being called 'George'."

As we got within earshot, I heard Inventions say, "Really, George? Your car looks pretty much the same to me."

"The improvements are on the inside," the Skeleton Monster boasted. "In fact, I've spared no expense. I've even lubricated all the bearings with . . . Flychamp oil!"

Inventions couldn't keep from giggling. "Flychamp oil! You hear that, Sam?"

I folded my arms and grinned from ear to ear. I felt like the proud cat who'd just caught the mouse. "I heard him, all right."

"What's so funny?" the Skeleton Monster sneered, insomuch as a skeleton can sneer.

"Oh nothing," Inventions chuckled. "It's just that . . . my assistant" — he thumbed in my direction — "figured out a way to make synthetic Flychamp oil."

"You've got to be kidding me," the Skeleton Monster said.

"Nope," I said. "Turns out, Flychamp oil only needs one compound from the whale oil, and I've figured out how to make that one compound using ordinary salad oil."

Leslie seemed genuinely impressed. I figured I'd better act cool.

Inventions stood to one side of his own car, as if he were about to make a dramatic reveal. "Well, I guess I'd better . . ." he opened a side door to deliberately showcase his cockpit's interior ". . . climb aboard!"

The Skeleton Monster glared. Or at least, I think he was glaring. It's hard to tell with only empty eye sockets. "Those handles. They don't look like a steering wheel or handle bars!"

"They're not," Inventions preened. "They're a pair of hand cranks. I can tilt the whole hand-crank wheel to steer, but they also provide extra power. They're pedals . . . for my hands."

I could almost hear the calculations going on in the Skeleton Monster's head at that moment. "That's . . ." he hesitated. "That's not what we agreed to! This is supposed to be a pedal powered car race. Pedal comes from the Latin adjective pedalis, meaning 'of or belonging to the foot.' The foot. Not the hand!"

"Ah, but language evolves," Inventions replied, "And today 'pedal' can also mean 'to press one or more levers attached to a wheel in a continuous circular motion'. They don't actually have to be operated by the foot. In any event, I feel that I've upheld the spirit of this challenge as well as the letter, since the only power source for this car will be my own muscles."

The Skeleton Monster looked right at Inventions, and leaned in. "You know what? I'll accept that. I'll actually accept that. You know why? Because I've made enough incremental improvements of my own, on my own car, that your pathetic rule-bending won't matter." He gritted his teeth, yet still he spoke. "I. Will. Still. Beat you!"

The walking skeleton clattered back over to his own car, and sat himself down in his own cockpit without another word.

Inventions smirked at me as he clambered into his dark blue car's side door. "Looks like it's time to get the race started. We'll go on your signal."

They both crept up to the starting line, saving their strength for the two laps ahead of them. I walked out between them, just as I had for their last race . . . but this time, Leslie trotted up next to me and said, "Let me start it."

"Uh . . ." I was dumbstruck, as usual.

"I've always wanted to do the race-starter girl thing," she explained.

Who was I to deny the woman of my dreams? I stood aside and let her take my place.

She took a deep breath and straightened herself to her full height. From somewhere on her person, I still don't know whence, she pulled out a silk handkerchief and held it stiff-armed high above her head. Her whole form took on the aura of a statue, a majestic statue of a goddess walking the earth, frozen at a moment in her history. From her raised arm pointing skyward, to her marble-perfect face, to her perfectly-proportioned torso, and all the way down her toned, transcendantly-lovely legs; everything about her was all I could ever want in a woman, all I could imagine ever wanting.

And at once, the hand holding the handkerchief shot downward, and both racers took off. I almost forgot to start my stopwatch.

As before, Inventions shot off, and the Skeleton Monster began to lurch forward, slowly but surely gaining speed. It was hard to judge by sight, but it seemed as though the two of them were going just about as fast as they did in their first race. Were Inventions' hand-cranked pedals not working? Why wasn't he going faster? As he rounded the first turn, I could see into his cockpit, and it sure looked like his hands were cranking something. But again, he didn't seem to be going any faster than before. And the Skeleton Monster seemed to be narrowing his speed gap just about as fast as last time.

When they passed the lap 1 line, and my stopwatch caught their times, they both came within one second of their lap 1 times on the previous race. Not only were Inventions' hand cranks not making a difference, neither was the Flychamp oil. Genuine Flychamp oil on the Skeleton Monster's bearings, or my synthetic Flychamp equivalent in Inventions' moving parts, it made no difference. It almost made me laugh. Flychamp oil didn't give a cyclist a real edge at all. It was all perception — like those audiophiles who swear that half-inch-thick speaker cables sound better than quarter-inch ones, even though they can't tell them apart in a blind test. In fact, its use of whale oil was probably part of its appeal; it made Flychamp oil rare and immoral, like how a fantasy witch needs hard-to-obtain newt's eyes and virgin's hair to cast her magic spells.

But if Inventions' hand cranks weren't helping either, wouldn't that mean he'd still lose the race? The Skeleton Monster's green car was still accelerating, just like he'd done the first time. The gap between their cars was narrowing, just like it had done at this point in the first race. If it kept going at this rate . . .

Just as before, Inventions' dark blue car sped up a little bit as the Skeleton Monster gained on him. I could see it all replaying again in my mind. Fatigue would make Inventions slow back down to his cruising speed, just as before, and then —

But this time, Inventions didn't slow back down. He kept up his new, higher speed. He could sustain it this time. That's what he'd been using the hand-cranks for. He was pacing himself. With his hands providing a little more oomph, his legs hadn't fatigued quite as much during the first lap. He wasn't quite as tired. This might be all the edge he'd need.

The green car was still gaining on him, but it wasn't gaining quite as fast. Inventions reached the half-way mark on the lap a hair sooner than he had the first time. The Skeleton Monster kept lurching faster and faster, still closing the gap, but time and distance were running out for him . .  and at last, the blue pedal car crossed the finish line half a car length ahead of the green.

The cars took over a quarter of a lap to coast to a stop. I jogged over to them, like I'd done after the last race, but this time with jubilance in my step instead of dread. I heard Leslie's footfalls a few paces behind me. Inventions emerged from his car, dripping with sweat but triumphant, just as I arrived. He slapped the car on its top like you'd slap a good buddy on his back, and said "Now that's how you do it!"

The Skeleton Monster slowly extricated himself from his own contraption. Inventions couldn't help but rub it in: "Well, George, it looks like I win again!"

"Of course you win again," the skeleton grumbled. "You always win again. Every goddamn time, no matter what I do, no matter how hard I try, you're always there to remind me of what a loser I am!"

He slumped down next to his car, his bones clattering on the pavement. I almost felt sorry for him.

"I get one tiny victory," the Skeleton Monster went on, "One pedal powered car race that I actually, somehow, managed to win for a change. One tiny bright light in a never-ending sea of failures. And what happens? A week later, bam, you take it right back away from me!" He bashed his car with the side of his bony fist. "I'm nothing but a no-good loser!"

The Skeleton Monster covered his skull-face with his hand bones. If he still had tear ducts, would he be sobbing right now?

Inventions just crossed his arms and, in the meanest display of petty arrogance I'd seen from him yet, said to his rival: "You got that right."

This . . . this didn't sit right with me at all.

"No," I said.

All three of them looked at me. I tried to find the words.

"No, you're not a loser," I said to the skeleton. "You're second best. Everybody makes 'second best' out to be something you should be ashamed of. Something," I stumbled on my words, "Like it's something to look down upon. And that's stupid! Second best means you're better than almost all of the competition out there. Second best is a silver medal in the Olympics. You, I've heard that you can engineer things that most people could never even dream of. So what if someone out there is better at it than you!"

The Skeleton Monster's hands fell away from his bony face. He wasn't despondent any more, he was just . . . looking.

Inventions, arms still crossed, started to open his mouth to speak. His smirk made my stomach crawl. I pointed a threatening finger at him and cut him off cold.

"And you," I addressed my mentor with a snarl, "You're so used to winning, you're so used to getting your way all the time, that you fell all to pieces just because you came in second once. You've got just as petty a need to be on top all the time as the Skeleton Monster does. You're not superior to him, you're just like him!"

Inventions muttered something under his breath. It almost looked like he was saying, "I wish." He took a deep breath or two, then turned to the Skeleton Monster without looking directly at him and spoke up: "George, I . . . Doctor Herkamer, I . . . damn it." He looked the Skeleton Monster directly in his eye sockets. "All right, I'll say it. George, I'm envious of you."

"Me?!" the Skeleton Monster looked incredulous. "Oh, is this more of your damn sarcasm? You just trying to rub it in some more?"

"No," Inventions said with all seriousness, "I . . . damn it, George! You invented something I never did, and probably never could have. You invented immortality."

The Skeleton Monster groaned. "You are just rubbing it in. The biggest failure of my career!" He jumped up and showed off his ribcage. "My sure-fire formula for eternal life, and all it did was turn me into a walking, talking sack of bones!"

"You are so missing the big picture here, George," Inventions retorted. "Right now, at any moment, there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people lying on their death beds. They've got some incurable terminal disease, or they're super old, and they're thinking that it's the end. They think that their lifetime of memories and experiences are about to vanish into nothing, and there's nothing they can do about it. What if they could become like you!" He thrust a finger at the Skeleton Monster when he said you. "Look at you! You have no brain that can decay or get Alzheimer's, and yet you can think! You have no muscles or tendons, and yet you can walk! You have no eyes, and yet you can see! You have no vocal chords, and yet you can talk! Heck, you don't even need to eat! And you've been doing it for years! What you are," he slowed his speech for emphasis, "Is nothing short of a miracle."

The Skeleton Monster put a bony hand to his bony chin, pondering this.

"And I've never pulled off a miracle," Inventions went on. "Not even with time travel." He glanced off into the aether for an instant when he said this, then returned his attention to his long-time rival. "You think of yourself as the Salieri to my Mozart. Well . . . I feel the same way about you. That's why I'm always so smug when I come out on top."

Leslie, calm and smooth as always, interjected: "You do know that Mozart and Salieri weren't actually rivals in real life, right?"

Inventions waved her off. "Pop-culture analogy. Anyway. George. Just imagine what all those dying people could do with all those extra years of life. Sure, there'd be no flesh on them, but a writer could still write, a composer could still compose, a plumber could still plumb —" He thought about that for a split-second, "Though he might need to wear special gloves so that he could grip the pipes properly. And we don't even know, yet, how long a skeleton can live! You might last for centuries! Imagine all those people, with all those lifetimes of experience, getting to use that experience and build on it again."

I mulled the idea over in my head. I cringed at the thought of half the people I'd meet being walking, talking skeletons. But then, that just might have been my own prejudice as a flesh-and-blood person.

"In fact," Inventions went on, "It's absurd that you haven't patented your . . . um . . . your skeletonning procedure. I'm sure the first recipients would be willing to pay a fortune for it."

After a moment, the Skeleton Monster looked back at him and said, "Denecrotization."

"Hm?"

"Denecrotization," the Skeleton Monster repeated. "That's what I was originally going to call the procedure, back when I was developing it." He held up a bony hand. "And before you say it, yes, I know. There's a certain irony in naming it de-necro-tization, when the end result" — he indicated his torso — "looks like something a necromancer would summon."

Inventions suppressed a giggle, and said, "Actually, I figured you named it that because you thought it would eliminate cell necrosis. In which case, it worked. You can't have dead cells if you don't have any flesh."

The Skeleton Monster glared at him with his hollow eye sockets. Then, he almost seemed to soften. "You know, that is kind of funny." He paused. "You really think there are people who'd be willing to put up with a body like mine, if it meant staying alive?"

"I'm sure of it," Inventions replied.

"Huh." The Skeleton Monster seemed to stare off into the distance. "My greatest failure just might be my greatest achievement." He stood up abruptly. "I need to call my patent lawyer." He started clambering into his pedal car, mumbling, "Business development's gonna be a big unknown. How do you market a medical invention? There's gonna have to be advertising, investors, schmoozing . . ."

He pump-pedaled away. We all watched his green car recede into the distance, his voice trailing away with him.

Leslie went her own way, reminding me — as though I'd forget — that we were still on for dinner that evening. Inventions and I took turns pedaling his car back to his lab. He didn't wait to help me park it in its proper spot. He had that "I've got an idea" gleam in his eye again. He bounded over to his tachyon receiver, the one he'd gotten a message from the future with.

"I think I figured it out," he said. He started fiddling with its switches and dials.

"Um . . . figured what out?" I asked.

"How to send a message back in time to myself," he replied, still fiddling. "I should have seen it sooner. The tachyons have to be generated by the same device that originally received them. Any other arrangement couldn't work at all. Causation physics simply wouldn't allow it. I have to rig this exact same tachyon receiver to do the sending, for me to have received the message in the first place."

He pulled open a panel on the side of the unit and reached inside. After a second or two, he frowned. "Yep," he said. "Yep, I should've seen this too. There's no other way to engineer it. When I switch over to transmitting, it's going to burn itself out. I can send one message back in time, and then the machine is useless."

I frowned. "Couldn't you just build it again?"

"I could," Inventions answered, "But then it would be a different tachyon receiver. Even if I were to re-use all the parts from the first one, the core would be just different enough that I couldn't use it to send a message back to the first one. I could only use it to send a message back to itself. No receiver is ever going to be able to send messages back farther than when that receiver was built and switched on."

He pulled out a laptop PC and plugged in a USB cable. The other end of the cable stretched somewher into the tachyon receiver's labyrinthine innards. "I should probably close the time loop. I'll send back the same message I received before." He pulled a strip of paper tape out of his pocket, the same tape he'd gotten the earlier message on. I was amazed that he'd kept it on his person all this time. "Let's see, 7-bit ASCII," he tapped somewhere on the PC's touchscreen, then started typing: "listen to Sam, don't give up."

"It's all queued up," he said, "Just gotta flip the last switch." He reached for a toggle inside the receiver . . . then curled back his finger without pressing it. "Hmmm," he said. "I wonder what would happen if I didn't send the message. Or if I sent a different one." He stared off into space, gears grinding almost audibly inside his head. His brow furrowed, then he shook his head. "Nah, better not risk it. Wouldn't want the universe to collapse."

He pressed the toggle. The machine's core sizzled for about a second, then went silent.

"Aaaaaand it's sent," Inventions said. He looked around. "Hm. No future me. No Hitler." He glanced at the paper tape strip. "Message looks the same as it did before. Looks like we're safe!"

I said, "Well, at least that's over with now."

"Now to build another tachyon receiver," Inventions said. I put a palm to my forehead. Inventions ignored me and started ripping the dead core out of the receiver. "Never know when I'll need to send another message back in time to myself!"

Oh, great. I shook my head, still cradling my forehead in my palm. I wasn't looking forward to breaking the universe. . . . But then again . . . "Um," I began, "You could always use it to send yourself next week's winning state lottery numbers."

Inventions wrinkled his nose. "That'd probably be unethical."

"Um, listen," I said as he continued tinkering with his time-message machine, "If you won't be needing me, I'd kinda like to go home and get ready. I have a big date tonight."

"That Leslie lady?" he asked, taking apart the tachyon core with a screwdriver. "Congrats. Have fun doing whatever it is you two do."

I took that as permission to leave. "Have fun," he said. Hah! With that many butterflies in my stomach? I'd be lucky if I could just hold myself together.

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