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create a sickly red. Like thinned-out watercolor paints. I raked through every possible nook of my intellect. What had I missed? What could go wrong?
    On some level I was there. My mind told my hands what to do and then they did it—basic chemistry, synapses snapping rapid-fire. I dumped the brine water into the basin with a splash. I felt as if there were a layer of Plexiglas separating me from the experiment and I was standing on the other side of it watching .
    I nestled the wires into place, each now burrowed into one of the incisions. The next piece of the puzzle was the diathermy device. My crown jewel. The part that had taken me the longest to figure out. Even if the brain patterns were reignited by the jolt of electricity, the blood in the heart still needed to start pumping again, a problem first discovered—but not solved—by Dr. James Lovelock. I opened one of Dad’s tool drawers and pulled out the ancient aircraft radio that I’d made Owen purchase on eBay. Owen was the machinery geek, and he’d retooled the radio until it was in working order and could act as a frequency transmitter to emit microwaves. Before, I’d tried to use heated metal, mainly spoons, to reheat the hearts of several Mr. Bubbleses. The problem was that if they ever woke up, they’d be met with third-degree burns. The radio frequency transmitter was a more humane alternative. I placed the clunky aircraft radio over the boy’s heart and let Owen lean the boy’s torso forward so I could duct-tape the device to his chest.
    Meanwhile, my own heart was very much alive, pumping and halfway up my throat. Einstein army-crawled a few inches closer.
    Staring at my handiwork with open eyes, it was the first time I could see the complete picture of what I’d done.
    And it was a terrible thing.
    Because there was a boy. And he was dead.
    But instead of looking still and peaceful as he should have, I had sliced and sutured, cut open and inserted, and what was left was a monstrosity lying prostrate in a filthy tub. My limbs turned to wet cement.
    Head down, Owen wheeled the kilowatt meter over. “How much?” he asked, his mouth pressed into a white slash.
    I glanced over the notes I’d written, the bits of chicken scratch that were barely legible. “Five hundred and fifty,” I said. Five hundred and fifty. The number seemed to ring in the air. Five hundred and fifty. Higher volts than any breathing human body could withstand. He shook his head, but leaned down, placing his elbows on the cart. Adjusting his glasses, he forced the dials to spin.
    A cable snaked its way from the gauge, and I held the end in my hand, imagining the buzz of electricity coursing inside my grip, waiting to be unleashed. On the other side, the trail of yellow, green, and red wires leading from the boy’s body floated in the brine water below.
    I switched on the radio transmitter, then held my arm out over the water. I looked back at Owen.
    â€œFamous last words?” he said, eyes burning with intensity.
    â€œAfter this, maybe there will be no last words.” I took a deep breath and released the fingers clutching the electric cable into the brine water.
    Sparks created firefly bursts all around us. The cords churned up brine like a water moccasin. I crouched for cover as the storm cellar filled with the smell of smoke and burning hair. The body shook, trembling violently in the water like it was strapped to an electric chair. I turned my head but couldn’t look away. The boy’s face morphed into horrific grimaces. His tongue lolled out the side of his mouth. An eyebrow shot up to an unnatural height, and his pupils rolled back into his eye sockets until all I could see was white.
    My throat caught fire. I felt bile rising up, dangerously close to reaching the roof of my mouth, and I wanted to scream and cheer and throw up all at once.
    An earthquake swept through the mass of lifeless flesh, blurring