Weird Science

Robby held the key in one hand and the "Weird Science" DVD case in the other. The big problem with the movie was that the two geeks had to "share" the lovely Lisa. No, come to think of it, the big problem with the movie was that it was PG, so you only got to see Lisa's back during the shower scene. No, actually, the big problem with the movie was that they had to make Lisa look exactly like Kelly LeBrock. No, on fourth thought, the big problem with the movie -- Robby figured he'd better get off that train of thought and just use the key in the way his uncle Pete's letter had suggested he could. He tried to will Lisa to "escape" out of the movie and into his living room -- and the gem in the key flashed, but all that happened was the sudden appearance of a DVD in a jewel case on his coffee table.

Robby put down the key and the "Weird Science" DVD and looked at the new item. It turned out to be a DVD-R with "LISA + EDITOR" written on it in what looked like black Sharpie. He instantly figured that the key's magic had given him not Lisa herself, but Lisa's original source -- well, that was perfect. As he took the DVD to the computer in his bedroom, he realized that the key's magic must also have "updated" things, so that he wasn't holding the floppy disk that should have emerged from a mid-1980s movie.

He sat at his desk and slid the DVD into his PC's drive. The usual whirring noise started, and then his Windows desktop went black. A line of white text appeared: "LISA (c) 1985 Wyatt Donnelly." He chuckled.

Another line of text popped up under that one: "Upgrading computer." Robby couldn't imagine what that meant, but then blue lightning bolts appeared, tracing the surface of his computer's case. It looked just like the effect had in the movie, and like in the movie, the lightning bolts meant there was Lisa's genie magic at work: he now had what he recognized as a Mac Pro, with its distinctive ebony-colored cylindrical shape.

He'd been looking at the computer itself as it changed, but he turned his head to notice that he now had a gigantic Apple widescreen monitor, plus a matching keyboard and mouse. A Mac desktop appeared on the screen, and one big window opened -- it was the Lisa editor program. On one side of the window, a wire-frame model of Lisa slowly rotated. Robby clicked on a button under the model and watched as skin and hair appeared, meaning that he was now looking at Lisa's nude body. Taking up most of the window was a nearly bewildering array of sliders and input boxes, but Robby was fairly confident he could figure out what to do if he wanted to make some changes to Lisa -- it looked like it'd be fairly similar to creating an avatar in a computer game. But there was a big "Create" button at the bottom of the window that looked awfully tempting, and which he guessed would result in Lisa being exactly as she was in the movie.