Chapter 1: The Memory Cartoon-inator
Sunday, September 14, 2008
Summer Vacation Day 104
It was one of the last really beautiful summer days. Already the wind carried just a small bite of colder weather to come. But the sun was high over Danville, and if one didn't look too closely it might as well be June. If one zoomed in on a particular suburban backyard, they would see two very recognizable figures sitting peacefully against a tree, and a teal platypus lying at their side.
"Wow. The last day of vacation already. Summer seemed to go by so fast Ferb."
"Truly, it was a season to remember."
The backdoor opened, and Linda walked into the yard. "Hi, boys."
"Hi, Mom."
"I'm going to the store for the final back-to-school run. Do you two need anything?"
"Nah, we're good."
"Well alright. Candace is still grounded, so she's not to leave the house. And your father's at the antique store trying to video chat and see what we missed at the convention. Ooh, Lawrence and electronics. Not gonna be pretty." This last said semi-sarcastically. "So I'm trusting you two to stay at home and stay safe. Have fun."
"Bye Mom!"
With that she got into the car and drove off. Phineas sighed slightly and turned to Ferb.
"So. We have one more day to have some super-awesome summer adventure. Tomorrow we go back to school and get to tell everyone what we did all summer, but we have this last day to actually do it. What to do, what to do…"
"We could always create nanobots."
Phineas considered this.
"True, that would round out the song. But I'm not feeling it, Ferb. This is our last hurrah! I mean true, over the year we'll have the weekends, and a bunch of shorter holidays, but this is the last day of summer vacation. We've done so many amazing things, and even if what we do today doesn't have a really big 'wow' factor – not that I have anything against a high 'wow' factor – then it should be meaningful. A proper finale! Let me see the record book."
From seemingly out of nowhere Ferb pulled out a medium-sized well-worn book labeled 'Ferb's Log'. It did not have anything too detailed or showy. Just enough pictures on each page to illustrate a different idea they had, and just enough writing to make a basic index. It was only a sketch book, after all.
Phineas opened the book up. "Maybe we can get an idea from our past creations. Let's see…first we built the rollercoaster, then we had a beach party in the backyard, drove cattle though downtown Danville, created winter in summer, held a chariot race, discovered Atlantis, inserted ourselves into a video game, became one-hit wonders…"
He was by now flipping at random through the book, and with each day's adventure Phineas' face grew ever brighter.
"…built a completely different rollercoaster to help Candace get 50 Fireside Girl patches, held a monster truck rally, managed a platypus-themed restaurant, hosted a quiz show, brought peace to the sci-fi-and-fantasy convention using special effects, opened a lemonade franchise, upgraded a miniature golf course, won three most pointless world records in one day, rebuilt the first rollercoaster as a musical…wow! Ferb, I'm not normally one to dwell on the past, but I guess I haven't looked at everything we've done all in one place like this before. This summer was completely amazing!"
"And you've skipped over all of the physically impossible things."
"But we did do them; that means they're not impossible." At this, Phineas' huge grin suddenly faded. He sighed, and opened the book to a different page.
"Tomorrow we go back to school and the first question everyone's going to ask is 'What did you do over the summer?' We can't say 'Oh, we just broke the law of gravity, built a portal to Mars, and travelled through time twice.' Who on earth would believe that? I mean, Isabella would, and the rest of the Fireside Girls, and Buford and Baljeet, and of course Candace, because they were there with us most of the time. But to a lot of people, that would just sound crazy."
Ferb raised a finger, about to comment.
"I know, but we won't have time to recreate any of these things while we're actually physically in school. And a lot of people, they have to see something to believe it." He sighed again. "I guess the best summer ever is just going to exist in our memories."
Suddenly he jumped up, with a huge smile.
"In our memories…that's it! Ferb, I know what we're going to do today!
Inside the house, Candace was lying on her bed, moaning at the ceiling. There was only one good thing about being grounded: she was able to sleep in. Given exactly how late the intimate get together (NOT a Candace-Party, whatever everyone else was chanting) had run last night, coupled with school starting tomorrow, every extra minute of sleep counted. Not that she was sleeping per se.
"It's not fair," she grumbled. "Phineas and Ferb build crazy things practically every day, but does Mom see them? No. But get me involved, and a whole flock of people I don't know suddenly barge into the house, I can't get them to leave, and the mystic universal force that vanishes all of my brothers' stuff from the backyard fails when it comes to me!"
She rolled over. "But you know what the worst part is? I can't even get mad at Phineas and Ferb. Not only were they not involved in turning my intimate get together into a…bigger intimate get together, they even supported me against Mom and Dad."
Candace adopted what was clearly meant to mock Phineas' voice. "But Mom, she didn't invite most of those people. Mom, she tried as hard as she could to get them to leave. Mom, it was the coolest party of the summer! You can't punish her for that!"
She got up and started pacing. "Oh, I don't know what to do. I'm pretty sure by now they're not trying to get Mom to think I'm crazy. They even monitored that one contraption for me until Mom got home. It's just the Universe that hates me. But today's the last day I can try to bust the boys, and I'm stuck inside the house. Starting tomorrow, they have a full year's pass on…wait!" She ran over the window. "What's that sound?"
In the backyard, two workmen were unloading boxes from a truck.
"Okay, that should do it. One contrast-less magnetic brainwave copier helmet, computer housing case, quad-core terabyte processors pre-installed with…say aren't you a little young to be ordering all of this stuff?"
"Yes. Yes he is. You get used to it pretty quickly."
"Actually," Phineas replied, "today's probably our last order for a while. School starts again tomorrow. But hey, you deliver on weekends year-round, right?"
"Sure do" said the worker as he drove off.
"Okay Ferb," said Phineas as he turned to the delivery, "let's build us a machine that will turn our memories into a video."
"Phineas and Ferb!" came a shout from inside the house.
"Oh hey Candace. You know, we don't mind if you come outside; Mom's not here to enforce your grounding. I'm sorry we could only knock two days off of it."
Meanwhile Candace was already running into the yard. "What are you doing?"
"It's a device that we're going to upload our memories into, and turn them into a video. Or possibly a movie, if it thinks we have enough interesting memories."
Candace just stood there confused. "What?"
"Well, the human mind is an amazing thing, but memories lose their clarity over time. We'll need as many people as possible to submit memories to get a full view of past events. And as long as this machine is already editing differing viewpoints into one shot, we might as well let it edit a whole day's memory into just the most important and exciting parts. We could probably condense a single day's memory into like ten minutes of video."
"So this machine is going to show everything that you've done this summer in a high-quality video format?" Candace's face broke into an enormous smile.
"That's the plan. It will probably take a long time to do every single day, but we can get one day's activity ready by…oh. That's a great idea, Candace! We can show Mom that the party last night wasn't your fault at all. She'll have to let you off since you were trying to get everyone to leave, once we prove it to her."
"What?" Candace's voice now bordered on manic. "No! No no no, that's not what I meant at all! You've gotta show Mom all of your summer activities. She doesn't know about any of them."
"That's crazy, Candace. Of course she knows what we've been doing..."
"No. She hasn't seen any of it. Every time she comes home, whatever you've been building flies away, or shrinks, or turns invisible, or explodes, or time magically resets itself. Every. Single. Day!"
Phineas looked downcast. "What about when we turned the car into a racecar? She was so happy…"
"She just thought you had washed the car."
"How about when we went back in time…"
"She assumed you were just expressing how interesting the museum was."
"When we built the S. S. Nosebud…"
"She only saw the canoe part, nothing below the waterline."
"How about…"
"Face it, Phineas," Candace interrupted, turning away with closed eyes. "Mom has absolutely no idea what crazy things you two have been up to all summer long. I've been trying to show your insane contraptions to her every day, but some mysterious power always intervenes to get rid of the evidence before she can see them."
"So…so every time you've tried to 'bust us' to Mom, you've been trying to show her what we've been doing every day?"
"Yeah, pretty much," Candace said dismissively. She opened her eyes as she felt herself being hugged.
"Oh, thank you Candace! You're the best big sister ever! I'm just so sorry it never worked for whatever reason. You're sure you don't mind us uploading our adventures first?"
True, Candace knew that her brothers were not trying to hide their contraptions. But this seemed a little extreme. Phineas was thanking her for trying to bust them! Roll with it, she thought.
The truth was that over what little time Phineas had thought about the matter, he concluded Mom would at least approve of everything he and Ferb had done, and quite love some of it. This was consistent with her lack-of-reaction every day, and a few incidents such as when she saw the fort they competitively built, or the teleport rings turned into hoop earrings. And Dad certainly had been onboard with everything; heck he had been in the passenger seat when Candace drove that monster truck!
"Of course not, little bro. You just get this machine all fired up and ready. And hey, if you need me to contribute any memories you just let me know."
"Aw thanks, Candace. We'll call you when it's set up."
"Fantastic. Oh this is wonderful! You two are going to be so busted, by your own memories!"
"Yeah, 'busted', go Candace!" Phineas called as she ran back into the house. Then he looked around. "Hey, where's Perry?"
Perry was already in his underground agent room, but the video screen remained blank and he was not in his regular chair. Rather, he was against the far wall, feverishly looking through a very thick reference book: Circumstances under which an Agent may Reveal their status to their Host Family, 4th edition, Volume VII.
It had been less than two weeks since the incident in the second dimension. No one not in the O. W. C. A. had any memory of most of the event, though Perry feared that this complete lack of memory may eventually spark someone to investigate. And of course most of the Tri-State Area had at least seen the Norm-Bot invasion, but had fled before seeing the Phineas and Ferb-inventions-led counterattack. Something for sure was going to blow over eventually.
But in the meanwhile, everything was back to normal. Phineas and Ferb had no idea of Perry's alternate persona as Agent P, secret agent, or of his nemesis Dr. Heinz Doofenshmirtz. Perry was not altogether happy with this state of affairs.
There had been some close calls during all of the action, but his boys had come through everything unharmed. It had been their creations that had won the robot battle! Certainly if anyone deserved to remember what had happened, it was Phineas and Ferb. Plus, once all the dust had settled, they were so happy to know about Perry's double life.
Of course, they still loved him now as a 'mindless pet', just as much as they always had, but it wasn't the same. It had taken some soul-searching on Perry's part to determine why exactly he wanted his owners to have their memories back, because if it was just for his own pleasure, he couldn't do anything with a clear conscience. But overall, it was for their benefit too.
But even though their memories were still recorded at O. W. C. A. headquarters, there was no convenient or safe way to just give them back. Besides which there was absolutely no legal way per O. W. C. A. guidelines.
So Perry instead was searching for a legal way to re-reveal himself to his owners. As soon as Phineas had described what he and Ferb were creating, Perry had a glimmer of an idea. After some frantic searching, he finally found what he wanted on page 289.
Metaphysical-Based Exception 42.7.1:
Should an agent's owners, independently of the agent, decide to use their memories to digitally create a video, movie, cartoon, or otherwise primarily audio-visual media of a significant part of their lives, the agent is allowed to reveal their identity as an agent for the purposes of contributing to this project if the following three conditions are met:
1: The finished product must be of highly significant entertainment or educational value to the general public
2: The product must be confusing and logically incomplete without knowledge of the agent's activities as an agent
3: The agent's nemesis must promise as per Form J-45 that they will not use the knowledge of the agent's host family for evil purposes against the family
Perry k-k-k-k-k-k-k-ed contentedly. This was exactly what he was looking for. He knew everything that Phineas and Ferb had done, and there was no way for a video of it all to not be entertaining. Since the majority of the time it was his battles with Doofenshmirtz that made their inventions disappear, the second condition was easily satisfied. He worried only about the third.
But after some more consideration, that seemed to be no problem either. Several of Dr. D's schemes couldn't be exactly classified as 'evil', and of the rest, well; they were mostly about personal vendettas or silly minor irritations. Despite his protestations to the contrary, there were not many people that Doofenshmirtz actively hated. It was likely that the Flynn-Fletcher family would not number among the unlucky few.
Perry ran to a file cabinet across the room, grabbed a J-45 form, and stowed it under his fedora just as the message screen turned on. Major Monogram was in position.
"Good morning, Agent P. Dr. Doofenshmirtz was seen at the library checking out some suspicious books. 'Musical Evolution during the Seventeenth Century', 'A History of African Percussion Systems', 'The Complete Collection of Instrumental Classification Schemes'. If it was anyone else, it would just be weird."
Carl's voice came from off-screen. "Or for a music-based research project, sir. I have a dorm-mate who…"
"Quiet, Carl! Anyway, since it is Doofenshmirtz, we have to assume it's something evil. We need you to find out what he's up to, and put a stop to it!"
Perry saluted, got out of the chair, ran to the hovercar, and drove off.
~~~~~~~~~~Doo-bee-doo-bee-doo-bah, doo-bee-doo-bee-doo-bah, Perry!~~~~~~~~~~
Doofenshmirtz Evil Incorporated!
One travel scene later, Perry landed on the flat roof of Doofenshmirtz's building. He jumped out, took three steps forward, and from out of the ground sprang several metal wires, which immediately wrapped themselves around Perry, binding his hands to his sides.
"Ah, Perry the Platypus. What an unforeseen surprise. And by 'unforeseen' I mean 'completely foreseen'! Let me tell you my evil plan.
"You recall earlier in the summer I had a list of several things I hate, like, uh, pelicans, and blinking traffic signals, and I built an –inator to turn their molecules into small-ecules, and never have to see them again! Well I think I figured out why that plan didn't work. I aimed too broadly. I had one –inator to get rid of like six or seven different things. It was spread thin, sheesh, no wonder it failed.
"So, Perry the Platypus, say hello to my Instruments-that-start-with-the-letter-B-away-inator! I've actually been working on it for quite some time now, and I tested it last night on a set of bells. Bells, I mean really, it's practically just a xylophone, why does it need its own name? Anyway, it worked wonderfully. So today, I planned to increase the power on the Instruments-that-start-with-the-letter-B-away-inator and get rid of all the B-starting instruments in the entire tri-state area!
"But you see, then when I sat down to finalize my list of the instruments in question, I began running into problems. I mean there's the bass clarinet, for instance. Clearly it starts with the letter B, but it's obviously part of the clarinet family, and I don't have a problem with clarinets. A contrabassoon though is exactly the opposite. And that's just the reed instruments, Perry the Platypus; can you imagine what it's like to deal with instruments that were originally named in other languages? I've been having a real problem with it.
"So I've been spending all day studying instrument classification schemes, trying to figure out exactly how to judge all of these problem cases. I could build another –inator to do it for me, but it just seems like overkill. I only ever use two –inators for one scheme if it's really complex, and this is not complex, it's just frustrating. Though I really could use a..." Doofenshmirtz turned around to see Perry free of the trap and in a battle stance.
"Perry the Platypus, how did you get out of my trap? Well it doesn't matter. I needed a break from all the reading and stopping you from stopping me will work just fine. Bring it!"
In truth, Perry has wriggled one of his arms free from the wires, then activated the saw blades at the rim of his fedora to cut his way out. But right now Perry did not want to fight. Instead, he reached under his hat, grabbed the form, and offered it to Doofenshmirtz.
"Hey what's this? Are you trying to give me a paper cut Perry the Platypus? No? Well alright then, let me take a look at this thing. Form J-45, eh? Never heard of it. Let's see here, uh, blah blah blah, legal mumbo-jumbo…" then he gasped.
"You're revealing yourself to your host family? Why Perry the Platypus, that's so unlike you."
Perry motioned to keep reading.
"Oh, go on? Okay…oh here we go: '…the agent's primary nemesis…' what, do you have a secondary nemesis Perry the Platypus?"
Perry rolled his eyes, motioned again.
"Oh, more legalese. Right. '…the agent's primary nemesis is required to meet the agent's host family prior to the agent being revealed…' I get to meet your host family! Oh hooray! This is so wonderful. Now I can stop by your house anytime I want, and, I dunno, ring your doorbell and then run away! Just to annoy you Perry the Platypus. Actually I tried that once before but you destroyed by spy camera…"
Perry motioned once more, somewhat harshly.
"Okay, okay. Sheesh, I was just getting there. '…prior to the agent being revealed, and the agent's nemesis must sign at the bottom of this form that they will not specifically involve the agent's host family in any attempt to defeat the agent.' Well, that doesn't seem fair, I mean, I am trying to take over the entire tri-state area, I can't just leave one family out…oh, 'specifically', I missed that word. Well of course not Perry the Platypus." Doofenshmirtz pulled out a controller and pushed the one button on it. His own hover board rushed out to the flat roof.
"It's not your host's fault that you're living with them. I can keep any schemes I have against you separate from those that involve other people. Your host family probably is very nice, what would I have against them in particular? Come on, we'll take my hover board, it's bigger."
Perry climbed aboard, smiling broadly.
"And…that…should…do it!" exclaimed Phineas as he made a last few connections to their machine. "How's the software coming Ferb?"
Ferb was a few feet away, furiously typing at what looked like a regular computer keyboard, but he paused for a second and gave a thumbs-up sign to Phineas.
This machine was unlike most of their prior summer construction projects, in that they built it for functionality and endurance. It was a five foot high structure, which housed a modified computer. In fact it could be mistaken for simply a computer, given that it had a monitor and a keyboard. Most of the rest of the space was taken up with memory storage and a whole lot of processing power. The most interesting part of the device was the helmet, connected to the main body with several wires. Even this helmet, though covered in lights, switches, and gauges, was fairly tame by Phineas and Ferb's usual standards. But it was fully half the magic of their invention, for it was this helmet that copied the memories of whoever was wearing it into the machine's data banks. The other half of the work was turning multiple people's memories into a single video. But all of that was software and coding, which Ferb was just finishing up.
"We should be ready to fire this baby up in just a few minutes."
"Hey Phineas!" came a new voice from the backyard.
He turned, and saw their friend Isabella leading Buford and Baljeet towards the garage.
"Oh, hey Isabella."
"What'cha doin'?"
"Are you creating nanobots, ya know, to complete the song?" asked Buford?
"And why does it look so…functional?" asked Baljeet in his high voice. "Personally I approve, but it seems so unlike your previous constructions."
"Well," began Phineas, "you all know that school starts again tomorrow. And when everyone asks us what we did over the summer, and we tell them all the awesome adventures we've had, it is possible that people will not believe us. What with some of our escapades being, you know, impossible."
"Oh yeah." "Makes sense." "Indubitably." came the replies.
"So we're building a machine that will take our memories of everything that we've done over the summer, and put all of them together into one video."
"But, Phineas, don't memories fade over time?"
"That they do Isabella. That's why we're going to use all of our memories, and the machine will turn them into one coherent view. That way, if any one person's memory is unclear, the video will be fine."
"But that still won't be enough," asserted Baljeet. "A person filters out almost all of what they see at any given time. Most of their field of vision is just a blur. Even if you were to combine the memories of every single person in Danville, you would not get a clear product."
Ferb quickly pulled out a sheet of paper, and scribbled furiously for a few seconds.
"He's right."
"Oh," sighed Phineas, disappointed.
"Why don't you just make it a cartoon?" asked Buford. "That way you don't need to have all the details."
"Hmm." Phineas considered this, while Ferb began typing again in the background. "It would have to be a high-quality cartoon. Every person has to be recognizable, but I suppose we could flanderize them visually."
"Flanderize?" asked Isabella.
"You know, exaggerate certain physical features to make a specific person easier to identify. We wouldn't have to worry about texturing or fill, either. And it definitely would help with showing the parts that are technically impossible. Ferb, can we make a cartoon good enough to work?"
Ferb looked up and flashed another thumbs-up, this time with a dinging sound.
"Alright then. We're making a cartoon!"
"A cartoon!" Candace yelled while rushing outside. "What's this about a cartoon? You said you were turning your memories into a high-quality totally-accurate easily-bustable video. Not a cartoon."
"Don't worry Candace," Phineas replied. "The cartoon is going to be great. High definition, and certainly as accurate as a video. It just will save a whole lot of energy on the graphics module."
"No way am I letting this go sight unseen. Move over, pipsqueak" she said while pushing Ferb to the side and sitting in his chair. She reached up and grabbed the helmet.
"Candace, no! The code's not quite finished..."
But too late, for she had put the helmet on. At once all the lights turned on, and the helmet began vibrating and making other loud sounds. Not two seconds later it stopped. The helmet rose off of Candace's head, leaving her seemingly no worse for wear.
"Candace! Are you okay? How do you feel?"
"Fine. Now move! I've gotta see how it turned out."
But the machine was already answering her. A mechanical voice spoke. "Memory download successful. Now storing memory of…Candace Flynn, from…June third."
And onscreen appeared a new file labeled with a small cartoon picture of Candace. Ferb enlarged it to fill the screen. Everyone crowded around to look at it.
"Check it out! I think cartoon Candace looks pretty cool."
Candace examined it closely. "Eh. It's not too bad. Certainly better than when you built that animation studio. But this is just a picture. Show me it when things are moving."
"We can't, Candace. We've got to input all of our memories before the machine will put them together."
"So in other words, you called me out here too soon."
"But we didn't…"
"No. I'll be inside. Wallowing" she said while walking back into the house.
Everyone stood there in silence for a moment. "O…kay…let's all input our memories then. June third. That was the first day of summer vacation, right? When we built a rollercoaster for the first time?"
"That it was," confirmed Isabella.
All of a sudden came a familiar noise from near the gate.
"k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k"
"Maybe we could work out a schedule. You tell me when your owners aren't going to be home, and I only come ring your doorbell then, eh, whaddya say, Perry the Platypus?"
Perry rolled his eyes, then pointed to the left.
"Turn left here? Ooh, nice neighborhood. You know I never really 'get out' anymore. Recently the only times I've left my building are for part of some evil scheme. And ideally I have you stuck in a trap coming along for the ride. But this, just travelling for the sake of travelling…it's nice, you know what I mean Perry the Platypus? You do?"
Perry was listening with half an ear if that. Listening to Doofenshmirtz's monologues was one of the most boring parts of his job. So it was with relief that he finally saw them coming up to the Flynn-Fletcher house. He made one more motion, to stop the hover board, then whipped off his fedora and dropped to all fours, into his persona of a mindless house pet.
Doofenshmirtz was pulling the hover board to a stop just a little way down the street. "So is this the place, Perry the…" then he turned around. "Aww, little platypus, how'd you get onto my hover board? Did mean old Perry the Platypus drag you up here?"
Perry rolled his eyes, quite annoyed. Doofenshmirtz just could not recognize him without the fedora. While that had helped Perry out more than once in the past, right now it was just a problem. Perry got back up and put his hat back on.
Doofenshmirtz gasped. "Perry the Platypus! Where'd you go off to?"
Perry reached a hand up and grabbed his hat. Then, very slowly, he took it off. Wait a few seconds…very slowly, put it back on. Repeat. Then he assumed his 'mindless house pet' persona, but still wearing the fedora. Return to standing. Repeat. Finally he looked up at Doofenshmirtz expectantly.
Heinz was just looking confused. "I don't get it. How did you keep on just disappearing and reappearing just now?"
Perry smacked a hand to his face, grimacing. He grabbed Doofenshmirtz's hand and started dragging him to the backyard.
"Wow, Perry the Platypus, you must have been working out! But seriously, this is very uncomfortable. I don't like being dragged around by a creature a tenth of my size. It's just not cool. Where are we…"
But Perry stopped, having reached the gate to the backyard. He looked sternly at Doofenshmirtz, and motioned for him to follow. Then he once more whipped off the fedora and dropped to all fours, before running through the gate.
"k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k-k"
"Oh, there you are Perry!" said Phineas. Then he saw Dr. Doofenshmirtz. "Did you find our pet platypus, mister pharmacist?"
Doofenshmirtz, still not recognizing the now-hatless Perry, looked on in confusion. "Is every platypus named Perry?"
"In a perfect world, yes."
Perry smiled, recalling the events of a week ago. Then he surreptitiously put his hat back on. Doofenshmirtz gasped again.
"Perry the Platypus!"
"Ye-e-e-es. That is his name, I just said. He often wanders off during the day. Always comes back though. But…"
"Wait a moment! I am not a pharmacist, geez, why does everyone think that? Just because of the lab coat, or…anyway, I am Doctor Heinz Doofenshmirtz!" This last phrase said loudly and menacingly.
"Cool. I'm Phineas and this is my brother Ferb. And thanks for finding Perry for us. Oh, did you give him that fedora? It looks cool."
Doofenshmirtz had been intending to 'tactfully' get away, as he didn't really want to be drawn into a long conversation with a bunch of 10-year-olds, but then he saw exactly what the boys were doing. "Holy shrimp, what is that? Is that an –inator you two are creating?"
"Well, we don't really have a name for it yet, but yes, we did build it."
Heinz was now looking at the machine with an appraising eye. "It kind of looks like just a bigger than average computer. I'm great with naming –inators. What does it do?"
"We're going to use this machine to take all of our memories of what we did over the summer, and put them together into an awesome cartoon video."
"Interesting…and what exactly is the evil application of such a video?"
Phineas glanced at the rest of the group. "Umm…I don't think there really is an evil application. We're just doing this to preserve the memories."
"Ya know, you're not giving me very much to work with here…I know! I call it, the Memory Cartoon-inator!" This last was again stated very loudly and declaratorily.
The children considered this. "Certainly straightforward," allowed Phineas. "I like it. The Memory Cartoon-inator it is! You sound like you have a lot of experience with building unusual machines."
"Oh boy, do I ever! I build a new –inator practically every day."
"That's so cool! What do you do with them?"
Doofenshmirtz was pleasantly surprised to have an interested audience. He sat down in the Memory Cartoon-inator's chair and smiled. "Well, their specific functions vary greatly. But each and every one of them I use to try to take over the entire Tri-State area!" For the third time his voice rose to great heights.
Phineas glanced at Ferb. "Wow. I don't think we've ever tried to do that."
"Well don't. I don't need any more competition for the spot of evil overlord. It's bad enough as it is, what with a secret agent coming over every day just to destroy all of my beautiful –inators. I mean, I guess it's in their job description or something to try and stop me, but I put a lot of time into my inventions. Massive investments of effort and material, every one. And my alimony checks barely cover my overhead anymore."
Perry meanwhile was sneaking over to the newly-dubbed –inator. He had a devious smile on his face. Ferb had stopped typing to listen to Doofenshmirtz's explanation, and everyone else was looking that way as well. Quickly he typed a few lines into the Memory Cartoon-inator and jumped down away from the machine. The helmet began lowering under its own power.
"I mean, surely it can't be impossible to stop my evil schemes while leaving the –inators alone. Why can't…AAAARGH!" Doofenshmirtz screamed as the helmet engaged his head. The lights came back on immediately and it began vibrating and making loud noises again.
"The pharmacist!" everyone cried.
Doofenshmirtz's voice was almost buried beneath the noises of the helmet. "I told you already, I'm not a pharmacist, I'm an evil scientist! Actually, I only screamed out of habit. This thing isn't hurting me at all. I'm just used to my –inators exploding while I'm right next to them, and me being in unbearable pain. Happens every day, you see. No, this is a pleasant surprise. But what exactly is happening?"
"Well," began Phineas in a somewhat shaky voice despite Doofenshmirtz clearly being alright, "I think the Memory Cartoon-inator is recording your memories of this past summer. Why, I don't know, since none of us activated it. Maybe it's going under its own power? But we didn't design that…anyway, it's not harmful at all. Hey, maybe this means you'll be in our cartoon!"
"If that happens I get 50% of all the profits. I consented to none of this!"
"We're not making the cartoon for money. It's just for fun, and to, you know, prove that we did do the impossible on a regular basis this summer."
"The Memory Cartoon-inator is taking a really long time," commented Baljeet. "It took only like two seconds to get Candace's memories downloaded. What is it doing now?"
"I don't know," replied Phineas. "Maybe we still have to work out a few bugs."
To everyone's secret relief, a few seconds later the helmet disengaged. Doofenshmirtz had been in it for over a minute. He stood up slowly.
"Well that was interesting. Did it work?"
The machine's voice came on again in reply. "Memory download successful. Now storing memory of…Heinz Doofenshmirtz, from…June third through September thirteenth."
Phineas was quite surprised. "September thirteenth? That was just yesterday. It looks like the Memory Cartoon-inator stored your memories of the entire summer! That shouldn't have happened. Let's take a look at our parameters again…oh I see the problem. We put in the timing specifications wrong. Well that should be easy to fix" he said, while typing.
In truth, Perry had changed a little bit of what Ferb had typed earlier, in an attempt to do exactly what had happened. He thought the boys' project could only be improved with Heinz's memories, but there was no way he could come over on a regular basis to give them.
Doofenshmirtz stretched. "Well, that was interesting. But I really have to get back to my building. I just got an idea on how to improve my own –inator. To be on the safe side, I'll get rid of all instruments that have a 'B' anywhere in their name. I mean really, who needs the tuba either?"
"Okay," said Phineas, fully immersed in their own machine again. "Good luck, and thanks for giving us the name and your memories!"
"No problem. Always happy to help up-and-coming young evil inventors. You're family's quite cool, Perry the Platypus," he said, for Perry had meanwhile wandered with Doofenshmirtz towards the gate. Out of earshot of the boys, Doofenshmirtz turned to Perry. "Anyway, I'll probably be all day modifying the Instruments-that-start-with-the-letter-B-away-inator and maybe changing the name, now that it's…anyway, it won't be ready until tomorrow. I'd be happy to trap you again then, but why don't we just call today a wash, eh Perry the Platypus?"
Perry handed over the J-45.
"Oh, the form? Sure, I have a pen right here. Why would I want to hurt those two kids? Ah, evil scientists after my own heart. Well, here you go Perry the Platypus. See you tomorrow!"
Perry nodded as Doofenshmirtz flew off. The platypus had one more call to make today…
Emerging from the tree chute, Perry found the screen in his lair blank. Normally Major Monogram just gave him his mission, then never contacted him again until the next day. Perry of course had ways to contact him, but used them rarely. He took out the form, and Volume VII, went over to his chair, and pressed the button that would call Francis.
A few seconds later, the video feed turned on. Major Monogram looked quite surprised. "Agent P! It's not like you to report back in the middle of the day. What's wrong?"
Perry opened Volume VII to the exception he had found, and held it towards the screen.
Major Monogram leaned in. "What's this? Exception 42.7.1! Are you serious Agent P! No one has ever tried to silver the fourth wall before. Carl! Show us what's going on in the Flynn-Fletcher backyard!"
"Live video feed coming up, sir."
And on the screen showed Phineas, Ferb, and their friends standing around the Memory Cartoon-inator, taking turns to download their memories.
Carl went on. "Actually it's kind of cool, sir! We've done practically everything else to the fourth wall. It just seems appropriate somehow."
"Haven't we already had this conversation, Carl?"
"Sorry, sir."
"Anyway, that's not important. There's no way Doctor Doofenshmirtz would have signed…"
Perry held out the J-45 form.
"…the form, that you're holding, that has, Doofenshmirtz's, signature, on it." Silence. "It could be a forgery!"
"Sir, just let Perry reveal himself, this cartoon is going to be so awesome!" Carl sounded very excited.
Major Monogram scowled. "If the O. W. C. A. gets compromised because of this, I'm taking it out of your hide, Agent P. But, I guess I have no choice. Go ahead."
Perry saluted with an enormous smile, and ran out.