Vic was feeling pretty pleased with himself. Things had not only gone well, they had exceeded all expectations. He was working to further his master's great project and had found an abundance of cute young college boys as fodder for the almighty heat-inducing hypnosis machine. Vic had such a spring in his step that he was again sorely tempted to kick off his shoes and go barefoot (but then, that temptation was becoming increasingly difficult to resist anyway).

In any case, Vic was feeling certain that things could not have been going better. Until he walked into the mechanics labs to find Henry hunched over what was supposed to be the duplicate heat-inducer device.

The underlying base frame was in place, but the casing was set aside, leaving the inner workings fully exposed. Of course, the idea that the tangle of wires, cables, and coils could ever end up "working" at all seemed more than a bit ludicrous at this stage. Vic stopped in midstep and stared. He gulped. And things had been going so well.

Henry twisted around to look at Vic. His face was smudged with grease and oil, his hands were filthy. A twisted wad of wiring was wrapped haphazardly around his right arm. He held a screwdriver in one hand, a pair of needle-nosed pliers in the other. He held a miniature soldering iron between his teeth, its cord spilling out onto the table and down to the floor. The guts of the inducer were spread over the length of two wooden work benches, looking remarkably unlike the organized interior of the original device.

Vic felt the color draining from his face. Henry spat out the soldering iron. "This is coming along a lot better than it looks, I swear."

Vic walked over to Henry in a daze. He had risked punishment by his hypno master by stealing his machine, he had recruited who knew how many unsuspecting young men to be handed over to said master, and his trump card was strewn six ways to Sunday all over the college mechanics lab. Henry started furiously yanking cords and connecting plugs, twisting exposed wires together and snipping excess fringes.

"This'll work, this'll work, I promise you this'll work", he said, muttering like a Rain Man handyman as he fought to complete his design before Vic dropped over from coronary thrombosis. A few twists, snips, and attachments later, and Henry jumped off his stool and wiped his hands on a soiled rag. "And that should do it!" He looked to the paling Vic for approval. He didn't get it.

"You've got to be kidding, right?"

"What?" Vic gestured to the mass of electrical spaghetti piled up on the table. "Oh, oh that! Well, it looks a little bit more...um, unbridled...than the original, but you gotta trust me when I say that the function will be just the same!" Henry smiled and nodded. "Yup."

Vic stared at it unblinking. Then he said in a monotone, "Prove it to me."

Henry tossed aside his rag and said cheerily, "Gladly!" He then moved up to the machine, such as it was, and after pulling aside a pile of wires, found the 'on' switch. With great flair, Henry waved about his index finger, hovering over the button. "I give you--the backwards engineered Victor machine!" And he flipped the switch.

To absolutely no result.

Vic stuck his tongue in his cheek. "It is plugged in, isn't it?"

"Yes! Of course it is!" Then Henry squatted down and looked under the table, frantically searching out the extension cord and following it to the outlet. He then came back from under the table. He repeated, "Yes, of course it is!"

Vic closed his eyes and let out a defeated sigh. The two stood there in silence for a few moments, then Vic opened his mouth to speak. He didn't get a word out, though, because someone else beat him to it.

"That thing's never gonna work, Henry."

The two boys turned to see a tall, muscular third-year student with short black hair and two days growth of beard. He wore baggy coveralls smudged here and there with grease. He pointed to the nonfunctional mess atop the work benches. "No way that's gonna work."

Henry became very defensive. "What the hell do you know, Dobberstein! This is a work in progress! For all you know I only just started it! Maybe it's not finished yet! You ever think of that, huh?! All I have to do is make with a little diagnostic action, and it'll work just fin--"

Dobberstein walked over to the machine and, fixing Henry with a hard stare, took hold of two plugs on the machine. With firm yanks, Dobberstein pulled up a red wire with a matching plug and its twin, a green wire and plug. He held the red up and said, "Positive feed." He then likewise held up the green and said, "Negative feed." He then reattached the wires into the opposite sockets they'd been plugged in to. As he did so, he narrated his actions. "Positive input. Negative input." He then reached over to the other side of the machine and flipped the 'on' switch.

Instantly, there was an all-too familiar hum as the circuits began to warm up, followed by the soft chugga-chugga-chugga of its components humming to life. Dobberstein raised his eyebrows, smirked, and walked away.

The two boys just stood and stared at the perfectly functioning mess of wires. Softly, Henry said, "Told you it was plugged in."

Vic grabbed Henry's head and kissed him on the temple. Luckily, this time when Henry fell over, Vic was there to catch him.