Sailor Moon Fan Fiction ❯ An American Boy in Tokyo ❯ In Living Techni-Color! ( Chapter 1 )

"It's complete." I said plopping down in the chair in front of my desk. In front of me was my latest creation, a remote control proto-type of the cars that would save the Earth's atmosphere. Behind me was my father who had been eagerly awaiting those words for the entire year that it took me to construct the proto-type.

"What's that mean, son?" He asked. I adjusted the glasses on my nose and started hacking away at my computer's keyboard.

"It means that as soon as we give this baby a personal test run, we can call the patent office." I replied smiling.

"And then?"

"Then we can choose our favorite dealership and lease the patent."

"Lease?"

"Yes, dad, lease. My inventions are mine, I'll gladly loan them out, but I will not sell them." I replied. "Bad business to sell too soon anyway." I started looking around. "Where's the fuel?"

"Oh, it's upstairs in the garage, still fermenting."

"When will it be finished?"

"Tomorrow morning we'll have a five gallon supply."

"Good, that's enough for two trial runs."

"So how long before we're rich?"

"At least another six months, after the trial run I'll have to dis-assemble the proto-type to see what kind of `wear and tear' took place. After that I'll reassemble it and give it a second trial run repeating the process." I said leaning back in the chair and twirling my pen up and down my fingers. "Inventing something of this magnitude is an exact science, we're looking at the cover page of Time/Life magazine, maybe even a slot on the Tonight Show." I said.

"Big time publicity." My dad nodded. He had been a business man all his life. When I had first told him about wanting to build this car three years ago, he laughed. But after I did the initial research and showed it to him, he changed his tune and saw dollar signs. My dad and I never did have a father/son relationship, it was always business. So when he offered to handle my finances for the invention in return for sixty percent of any profit I made on it, I jumped on the deal. I was only seventeen, so technically he could take it all, though I knew he wouldn't as I would turn eighteen before the proto-type was ready to market.

The invention itself was remarkable, a car that ran on methane alcohol. Burning alcohol produces a lot less polution than standard petrolium based gasoline. The main problems we had with the first engine design we built, was heat build up and regulation of the fuel. But after a few aluminum heat shields were added, and we made a few alterations to the carburator, it started looking up. The next problem was coming up with compatible lubricants and miscellaneous fluids. The oil required for lubricant was the same oil you'd buy to fry chicken or fish. Every consumable factor of the vehical was bio-degradable and non-toxic. We even did away with the severly toxic liquids used in the air conditioner and replaced them with liquid nitrogen which disolves into gas as soon as its introduced into a room temperature environment. All in all, this would mark a new era for mankind, and I was excited about it.

I had always loved inventing things, when I was ten years old, I set about the task of gathering as many used computer components as I could and building my own computer. Two years later, I finished `The Narnia' as I called it, after my favorite book series: `The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe'. It had an amazing three thousand terabytes of hard drive space, five hundred gigabytes of memory, and a processor that my father had specially made for it. We owned the patent on it's design, and Dell, IBM, Apple, and Gateway were all calling frequently to get their hands on it. The problem with most of my inventions, was lack of testability, like the laser pistol I had built out of used microwave parts. Theoretically it's range was two or three lightyears, how can you test that? What little testing we had done with it, had cost our neighbor's dog it's life, so it sat on my wall on pegs, not having been used in years.

"Well, son, I'll go start some more fuel to fermenting." He said getting up and walking away. I smiled slightly as I watched him leave my basement room, whenever he said that he was going to `ferment some more fuel' it meant that he was bored and was going to watch some lame T.V. show. I turned back to the computer and brought up my Media Player and started watching Sailor Moon. My friends in school called me `Otacon'

partially because Metal Gear Solid was my favorite video game, and partially because, like the character from the video game, I was an Anime freak. I had even developed the schematics on the computer for a suit that would simulate the powers of the five inner scouts, plus some additions of my own design. After I had watched my fill of the show, I checked my watch, it was almost midnight, time to hit the sack. I started to get up and go take my shower when I saw a spot on my arm. It looked pale and the hair was gone. It didn't hurt or itch, it just looked weird. I disregarded the spot and got in the shower. I felt a tingling sensation all over my body, but disregarded it as the excitement fading away. When I stepped out of the shower and dried off, I dressed in my sweat pants and a tee-shirt before going to brush my hair. The mirror was fogged up though, I wiped the mist off it's surface and realized that I didn't have my glasses on. I chuckled as I felt around for them, it was a common mistake for me. My father had always told me that I'd forget my head if it weren't attached to my shoulders. I put my glasses on and started to brush my hair when something stopped me. I looked in the mirror and saw an animated version of myself staring back at me. I looked down at my arms, the spot that I had seen earlier had spread throughout my body to cover all of me.

"This has got to be a dream." I said shaking my head and breathing heavily. "A really strange screwed up dream. I'm anime for heaven's sake!" I stopped at what I had just said. I had meant to cuss. "Shoot!" I tried another one. "And I'm rated `G' to boot! Man this stinks." I couldn't even say the word `sucks'. I took the brush and smacked myself in the forehead, it hurt and even drew blood. I wiped the blood off the wound with one finger and looked at it wide eyed. "There has to be a perfectly rational explanation for this, I must have fallen asleep before I got out of the chair, yeah, I fell asleep watching `Sailor Moon', and I do completely adore those girls, so it's only logical that I'd dream about being an anime guy. Hey," I stopped. "If this is a dream, and I am in Tokyo, why am I trying to wake up so soon?" I thought out loud. "This can definitely have it's plus sides." I brushed my hair and walked outside, inhaling a breath of fresh air. It had been night time when I stepped into the shower, but now, the sun was just beginning to rise and I felt very refreshed. I ran up to my room and put on some jeans and a `Jeff Gordon' tee-shirt, after inspecting my wallet and finding it full of bills, I smiled.

"I even remembered to dream myself up some money, cool. Guess I'll go catch a bite to eat." I grabbed the keys and headed out to the garage. The engine to my rusty old station wagon started after only two tries and I backed out of the driveway heading down the street to a breakfast place. Sure enough, the tell tale sign of dreaming, I couldn't read the sign, but somehow I knew it was a breakfast place. No sooner did I walk in, than I heard a voice that I knew all too well.