The Great Interactive Dream Machine Read Online Free PDF

penthouse with her muzzle between her paws. Then I realized that Miss Mather meant something else. Aaron and I edged around her to the elevator.
    I was going to push twelve when he said, “You can come on up to the penthouse if you want to.” This was more like the old Aaron, and I didn’t have any plans. I’d finished Time and Again and was as ready for the quiz as I’d ever be.
    As soon as we were in Aaron’s room, he booted up his computers. Lights flashed. Menus came up. Various voices spoke. Monitors glowed. Aaron limbered up his hands by playing over the keyboards. Then he was pointing and clicking and doing all the stuff he does. He was calling up his computer-camp-project formula. It began to flash on both screens and the added-on videos. Letters of light, figures of fire, visuals—clustered. Even Aaron couldn’t hold all this in his head. He peered. He squinted. He double-checked.
    When he seemed satisfied, he turned around to say, “We never finished lunch, did we? I’ll see what’s out in the kitchen.” Aaron’s idea of junk food is tofu and carrot curls.
    Then it came to me. It was a really bad idea, but it filled up my brain. Here right in front of me in an empty room was the formula that could send Aaron to computer camp.
    What if his formula got changed a little bit? What if just one of his digits was off? What if he showed the computer-camp people a bunch of no-brainer nonsense for his project?
    They wouldn’t take him.
    I’d have a friend to go to soccer camp with. We could get stomped together.
    I know, I know. But I was desperate. Terrible Daryl Dimbleby had pushed me over the edge.
    Then I noticed that my hands were reaching for the keyboard. They didn’t know where to begin. Even computer-literate people wouldn’t know their way around Aaron’s totally personalized and encrypted blendo-technopolis. It was like his brain—totally unexplored.
    I pointed and waited. I clicked. A finger of mine touched a key. One of the digits in Aaron’s formula winked out. I clicked OK. I entered a different digit, I forget what, and pressed Enter.
    I stepped back to watch screens all over the wall blink and make the change. Aaron came in the door behind me. I jumped a foot. He brought in two lo-cal power drinks and a plate of raw turnip sticks.
    I looked at this snack. “Is that it?” I said. “What are we, gerbils?”
    I watched him chew for a while. I didn’t feel good about what I’d done to his formula. You don’t have a lot of guilt in sixth grade, but you have some.
    Aaron didn’t look too innocent himself. He was up to something. He hadn’t invited me up here to watch him eat turnip sticks. He chugalugged his power drink and stood up.
    â€œI’ll need you to stand right there in the middle of the room,” he said, not looking at me.
    â€œWait a minute, Aaron.”
    â€œI’m going to try a dry run on this formula. Remember it’s just theoretical. It’s only happening on the screens.”
    â€œThen why do I have to be here?”
    â€œYou’re just backup,” he said. “In case something happens to me, which it won’t.”
    â€œWhat am I supposed to do if it does?”
    â€œUse your initiative.”
    But I remembered that thanks to me, nothing would happen, probably.
    He was staring at one of the screens. I could tell from the back of his head that all the compartments in his brain were fully engaged. Now he was working up his Emotional Component. All his thoughts were going in one direction, which mine never do. He was lining up his numbers with his need. He was being very creepy.
    He pressed Enter. Deep in its heart, a microprocessor clicked. A robot voice said,
    PROCEED RETROACTIVELY
    With a few moves Aaron scrolled his formula to the tops of the screens and entered another set of digits. The whole wall seemed to think about this. The voice