Edison tapped the house's alarm system into the armed mode and walked outside, thrusting his keys, wallet and hands into his pockets. Back out again he drew his control, fiddled with it a bit and the door to the car swung up. Edison slid into the driver's seat and the door hummed and snicked closed. 

The interior was dark, with enough buttons and dials to keep any gadgetry freak satisfied for hours. He casually reached up and flipped a switch. A panel above his head slid open and he pulled out a white card from a stack. He flipped the switch again and it shut.

Edison slapped the white card casually into a slot at the center of the dashboard, plunged the control into the left side of the handlebar column, and the machine flashed to life. 

There was a whoosh as the engines cleared their light-tracks, and a high, steady hiss as the atmosphere adjusted itself. With a gingerly careful touch, he slowly rotated a large dial all the way from zero to 75. He punched 6, Enter, Enter on the dashboard's numeric keypad. He smiled.

Edison held his breath, flipped the directional lever, and decisively pushed the "Forward" button. The car burst into flight, climbing rapidly upward, filled with the sound of the Beatles' "Drive My Car." Loud. 

And Edison swung around and, singing along, flew in the general direction of Erkonn Conspiracy, the trillion-dollar corporation that ate Nabisco and Beatrice for lunch and polished off Matsushita for an encore. 

And the tape played on, upstaging the chirping of Edison's digital watch's hourly chime. It was 2 o'clock. It didn't matter; Edison had no schedule of activity; not even the Erkonn meeting had a set time, and that was the way he liked it. He had been quite frustrated by the degree of stress brought about by high school; when the year ended he and his friends made a pact not to know or care what the date was again until school was back in session. 

And the song ended, the beep-beeping of the lyrics fading out to reveal the beep-beeping of the carphone and control, which had been going on for quite a few seconds. Edison quickly grabbed for the "answer" button, so violently that the car swerved, shaving the top of a maple tree, but it was too late. 

"Hi; sorry! I'm at home right now, but if you'd like to leave a message, go for it. Beep." spoke the recording.

On the screen the wild hair and deranged grin of Edison's friend Alex appeared.

"Hi," spoke the grin. "Are you /really/ not there, or ya just blasting Beatles again? Oh well. Just asking. Whatever. Anyway. This is Alex -- yeah, yeah I know, but I miss the /real/ phone, okay? -- and I called you at home and you weren't there and I called you in your car and you aren't there, either, so where the hell are you? I guess I'll just have to play detective and break into your home system again... So punch the phone, will ya? You there?" 

But Edison had become too absorbed in "Norwegian Wood (This Bird Has Flown)" to answer. He'd talk to Alex later, anyway, and tell him what Erkonn was up to. 

"Oh well. Talk to you later. Your home system is MINE! Hahahaa!" Snick. On hook. 

Edison was still wrapped up in the song, trying to figure out what the last line was supposed to mean, speeding up the car. He tapped his fingers on the steering handlebars and shut his eyes, swaying to the music. The car continued accelerating.....75..... 80....85....86....87-- 

"I've got it!" shouted Edison to an unappreciative dashboard. But It Was Too Late.

The moment the speedometer read 88, the car was shaken by a thundering crash from up front. Lightning flashed across the windshield. An airbag mushroomed out of nowhere, knocking Edison unconscious. 

There was a slowing, hissing sound. The car stopped dead and the noise subsided. Edison became gradually aware of the wind calmly blowing and a few surprised voices from below. He looked up. 

"Oh, God." 

Edison had crashed into an Erkonn teletower. 

Slowly he managed to untangle himself from his seatbelts, to stab the airbag with his control, causing it to deflate with a quite gratifying /poosh/ (the airbag, not the control), to grab the Beatle tape, stuffing both in his pockets (the tape and the control, not the airbag and the Beatles), and to climb down the side of the tower. It wasn't more than fifty feet to the bottom, and it was easy climbing.

Edison's feet hit the ground and he almost collapsed, but he quickly rescued the moment and transformed it into a grand bow. He looked ahead. 

Twenty-five teenagers and a few Erkonn personnel were staring at him, and gradually began to clap. He grinned weakly and signed the papers headed "Welcome to the Edge of Wonder!" that were being thrust at him. From his car above came the painsgivingly careful sound of twisting metal and cracking plastic.

A distinguished man in his forties, wearing tan pants, a brown belt, grey hair, and a blue shirt with an Erkonn identification tag proclaiming that he was the President of Erkonn Conspiracy Unlimited raised an index finger to his lips. The young lady who owned it glared at him but then realized that he was "B.G." and nearly died of swooning. She wasn't a fan of 1970s music; BG was the one man proclaimed Most Intelligent, Wittiest, and Sexiest Lifeform of the Year in eight popular magazines.

"Everybody, that way!" announced BG, with a trillion-dollar reassuring smile and a grand gesture of direction to his right.

In moments the entire group was inside the ALTAP room. They knew it was the ALTAP room because of the sign on the door that read: "Now Entering the ALTAP Room." Perhaps if the sign had explained what an ALTAP was, they might have approached with more caution. But as it was, all they knew was that the entire group was inside the ALTAP room. And there they stood. 

And there they stayed, until BG ambled in and told them to stay there some more. And the room was quiet.

Edison found a place to stand in the crowd, and there he stood, and stayed, and was quiet, and fit in. 

A young lady who was standing next to him sneezed. 

"Bless you," Edison told her. 

"Thank you," she replied. 

A moment passed by subtly. 

"Why did you do that?" Edison asked. 

"What do you mean, /why/?" her eyes swiveled pleasantly to meet his. 

"I dunno, it's just that I've never heard of anybody sneezing in a story when it didn't have something to do with the plot." 

"That's a good point, you know," she said thoughtfully. 

"But you have no idea why you sneezed?" Edison persisted. 

"Absolutely none. My nose just itched." 

"Odd." 

"What about it? Doesn't /your/ nose itch before it sneezes?"

"Actually, I suppose so," replied Edison.

"Well, then, what's so odd? It itched. I sneezed." 

"That's a good point, you know." 

"Thank you." 

"You're welcome." 

"That's good."

"I'm glad." She smiled. 

"So am I." He smiled. 

Another moment passed by. Edison looked shyly into Lora's eyes. He swallowed. His eyes watered a little and he looked down, continuing as brightly as ever. 

"You're sure it had nothing to do with the plot?" 

"Positive. I think," she replied. 

"You think." 

"Yes, or at least I think I think, don't you think?" she smiled. 

"I /think/ I think you think. But I couldn't swear." 

"You couldn't swear?" 

Both of them together: "Hell, no!" 

Another moment passed by. 

"What /was/ that, by the way?" he asked.

"Another moment passed by! Didn't ya see it?" 

Edison smiled. "I didn't exactly catch the plate number..." 

Another moment passed by, license plate number 634 784 5A. 

"Caught that one," he remarked. 

"What was /what/? Really, I mean," she broke the silliness. 

"What what was what really?" he tried to repair it, a little afraid of talking straight to her. 

"What what was what really what you said you wanted to know what it was a minute ago!" she exclaimed, confusing herself. 

"Oh, THAT." 

Another moment passed by. They ignored it. 

"Well?" she prodded. 

"Oh...I just was wondering if... well, if we were flirting. I couldn't tell for sure." 

"I don't know. I think so." 

"You think so?" 

"I /think/ I think so." 

"So, were we?" 

"Yes, I think so." 

"Yes?" he asked. 

"Yes." she replied, smiling. 

"Really?" he asked, smiling. 

"Really." she replied, smiling wider. 

"Really??" he asked, smiling wider. 

"REALLY!!" the other twenty-four teenagers shouted in unison. They weren't smiling.

Edison turned to see the whole group standing around them, staring.

"THANK YOU," the two of them replied. In unison. 

"YOU'RE WELCOME," they responded. Likewise. 

BG cleared his throat and the silence returned. 

A young man standing a few feet from Edison sneezed. 

"SHUT UP!" shouted the group. 

The young man shut up. 

"Ladies and Gentlemen," announced the gravelly pure voice of BG over the PA, "your attention, please. Welcome to Erkonn Conspiracy's Edge of Wonder Workshop games!" 

There was a small round of applause as the curtain was pulled back to reveal a control panel wall, with a few rows of buttons and dials, enough to keep twenty-five gadget freaks satisfied for hours. In the center, the place on which the brightest bulb was focused, lay a sparkling white QWERTY keyboard with a row of function keys, a few cords plugged into it, a color monitor above, and the letters VIC-20 proudly emblazoned above the topmost row of keys. 

"Ladies and Gentlemen, THE ALTAP!" 

The audience was silent, awestruck. 

From outside came the crash of Edison's car hitting the ground.

Edison winced.