After the lightning show, Gadd falls out of the chair, his hair a white frizzball. I cringe, but I accidentally catch a glimpse of the swirlies on the glasses.

The swirlies are still.

I tentatively poke Gadd's nose with my claw.

"Hey, sonny, watch them claws!"

Gadd pushes himself up on his own. My revitalizing serum must have done wonders for his arthritis.

Gadd's skin is still an eerie pickled color, and his skin on the one side of his face appears to be patched on, with creases where I had laser-sutured it together. These features will likely fade in a few days.

"Well, so you're the Prince Ludwig I have heard so much about!" he says, shaking my hand with vigor. I stare at his glasses, foolishly waiting for the swirlies to move again.

"I've gotta say, thank you, sonny, for the adventure of a lifetime! Few people who have been to the other side have lived to tell the tale! And I also wanna thank you for soaking my old bones in that revitalizing serum. Why, I feel like a spring chicken again!"

Gadd jumped and gamboled around for a bit as if he were a child. I wonder if he remembered terrorizing me while I was either dreaming or a brain in a jar?

"Um, I'm, uh…" I stare at the ground. I am not used to fumbling for words. "You… were ghosting around in my brain, weren't you?"

"Um, no, I don't think I ever did get inside that fantastic noodle of yours. But I'll say, I'll have some story to tell my granddaughter! She fancies you, you know."

No wonder he's heard so much about me.

"But you don't remember being involved in any experiments on me?"

"Nope. I remember everything like it was crystal clear, sonny, and I don't remember doin' no funnin' around with your body."

I am attuned to the notes of a person's vocal rhythm just as I am to the notes of an instrument. There is no discord of guile in his voice.

"Now thanks again for everything, and that Geniusificating-thingamajiggy of yours gets my FAN-TASTIC seal of approval, but I've gotta get going-"

"WAIT!"

Gadd turns around. "What is it, sonny?"

"About your glasses… how do… they… work?" My voice is small and hesitant.

"Are you sure you wanna know, sonny? You seem like a curious young'un to me, but you look a bit spooked whenever you look into this snazzy pair of specs."

"I, uh…" My mind clams up in fear.

"I say, you seem out of sorts, boy. Have you been overtaking your medicine?"

"I don't take medicine!"

"Well, perhaps you should, then? But the right sort, of course." He winks at me (although I am not sure how I know that considering the opacity of his glasses).

I know exactly what kind of medicine I need.

"I need a Koopaccino…"

"Well, there, sonny boy, you better get your Koopaccino maker up and running. I wouldn't go back to that Shellz place if I were you. Did you read the rest of the paper you printed off of that Transmutational Brainwave Analyzer?"

"Uh…"

"Good, then. Say hi to King Koopa for me! Ciao!"

After Gadd is gone, I leave to fetch the Koopaccino ingredients that I left in the pantry. I run into Iggy, who is wearing a new pair of glasses and carrying a jar of the prescription that we were out of.

"Hi Ludwig! I got new glasses and pills!"

"I see. Now, give Kooky the pills…"

Iggy runs off with the pill container, laughing.

No matter. The cap is childproof, and most certainly Iggy-proof.

I find my wagon full of coffee ingredients, exactly as I left it. I throw out the milk, having been out all night, if not longer (exactly how long was I a brain in a jar, or unconscious, or whatever?) and get a fresh jug out of the fridge. Guess skim will have to do for now. I take a stick of butter to replace the richness of flavor lost from the absence of fat.

My scales take on an odd pallor when I view them in the refrigerator light. Koopa scales do not normally show color change from enduring the circumstances of death and fluid preservation, but they are translucent enough so that the state of the skin beneath them can be determined in the right light.

It's refrigerator light. Everything looks paler in it, I tell myself; the current state of affairs has merely sensitized you to it.

My head aches like it's been split in half…

I return to my lab to find the door wide open.

Now, I made SURE this time around that it was quadruple-locked.

I race in, praying that Iggy hasn't destroyed anything this time.

The lab is silent and empty. Good.

I lock the door as tightly as I did last time, lost on how to lock it tighter. I dump the beans and the milk (with the butter in it) into their respective compartments and turn it on.

I must wait for the beans to grind and dissolve into the hot water.

It only takes a few minutes, but I want my Koopaccino NOW. I didn't build my own Koopaccino maker so that I would have to wait as long for a drink as I do at Shellz.

I turn around and immediately begin to design a Koopaccino maker with a built-in time accelerator to eliminate the startup wait time.

I perk up when the machine makes the READY! beep that I programmed it to do.

At the same time, and coming from the same direction, I hear a maniacal laughter, more hyper and manic than my own.

I turn around and I see Iggy standing on top of the Koopaccino maker, with the top open, twisting the cap of his pill container.

"Iggy, NO!" I scream. But it's a scared rather than the firm sound I was going for.

Iggy ignores me and dumps the entire contents of the pill container into my coffee.

"AAAAHHHH-HA-HA-!"

The End

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