by Tew, J. D.
‘Okay, so you are thinking about bringing me to the Uriel right, right, right?’ Lincoln asked frantically, digging for an answer.
‘Ummm, actually, no, I don’t know if you can give it all up,” I said, and turned my glance away, ‘for this.’
Lincoln looked at me as if I was a total jerk. ‘Dude, I am the missing Linc. That can be my name, come on, man,’ he said.
I burst out laughing, more out of astonishment than mirth at his joke. A wave of relief washed over me. ‘Okay, I am joking. You were the first person to come to mind, but I didn’t realize that you would come along this easy. That brings us one closer to reaching my goal. Don’t think anyone else will come along as easy as you did. This is going to take serious work from both of us. Can I trust you with figuring out a plan?’ I asked. I gazed at him in the eyes, still not believing he was so eager to jump on board. I half expected him to brush me off, stating he was joking too.
He didn’t. He explained that he would like to spend the night at home contemplating and formulating. I agreed.
We hung out longer, and then we parted ways. Feeling giddy, I knew he had a lot to think about, and so did I. I went home; as I walked, I felt the pressure of eyes on my back. I turned, while looking, and there was nothing there. With every step I took, I felt as if a footstep behind me mirrored my actions.
My nerves were shot. I wasn’t far from home, so I ran urgently, until I stepped on the driveway, and then I walked, looking over my shoulder. I arrived on time for dinner. We were having my grandmother’s best dish: sweet red peppers, jammed up to the brim with goodies.
‘Hi Theodore, how was hanging with your friend?’ my grandmother asked.
‘It was fun,’ I answered short and to the point, because the food stole my attention.
The stuffed peppers were juicy. Meat and rice tumbled over the cut top edge, and steam introduced a smell of delightful aromatic peppers into the room. It was lathered with a slowly simmered marinara and caused me to salivate upon seeing it.
I was like a zombie as I plowed through the meal. I would not even try to hear the conversation my grandparents were having over my drooling and lip smacking. The provolone cheese she melted over the peppers was caramelized. The first bite of pepper tantalized my seduced taste buds and gave way to reveal a bundle of meaty delight. I sat down, and my grandfather spoke:
‘So, you got your stuffed pepper eyes, I see. You look like a starving stegosaurus when your grandma makes these, let’s eat,’ my grandpa said, while he ripped into the culinary masterpiece.
I overflowed my stomach with four of the peppers. I waged war on that meal. I must have worked up a serious appetite running home. The human garbage disposal struck again. I retired into my room, knowing that I needed rest for what was in store, but I just had two subjects that I needed closure on: splices and time travel. Splices, I needed to know about, because King Trazuline had said something about different time versions of Travis colluding together. I held out my hand, and initiated the thought:
‘Precisely one million years previous to the current moment, time travel was limited to the concept of velocity based transversal time dilation . . .’
Nezatron carried on about the existence of time travel and its history for hours, before I grew tired. I found enough information to last me.
Zane had used a million years of endless research to develop a method of time travel. He located and stretched wormholes with Dietons, to facilitate time travel. That was the only way they could be certain that each pair of wormholes would be opened simultaneously. They merged the technology founded in teleportation with their discovery of the wormholes in creating The Chamber of Rafal.
Nezatron explained to me that my twin in time—my splice—was pulled from the time continuum and replaced with my present self. I was extracted and immediately deleted, then replaced. I was satisfied with just that explanation. Everything else was beyond my scope of comprehension.
I could not help but be disturbed by how easy it was to tear someone from his or her life, and remove them from existence. Before I drifted into a deep sleep that night, I had one last realization: I had to exercise caution on both sides—good or evil. I had no desire for deletion.
I lay in bed. I heard the sound of my grandpa’s television. Its dialogue of witty repartee reverberated within the air-vents leading up to my room. As I heard familiar lines from a movie I had seen long ago, I had to see what he was watching, so I ran downstairs.
“My grandpa was really pleased to see me, despite the late bedtime. He beckoned to an empty worn sofa and begged me to stay up a bit. I politely protested, I, but when I sat down, there was no way I was going to leave. The intriguing scenes of that black-and-white Moroccan movie had me. I spent the rest of my night enjoying a classic with the company of a wise man.”
As I gaze at my tablet, my head aches from hours of listening to my voice as it slowly became hoarse. I cannot help feeling useless. What am I doing? I remind myself that what I am doing is important, and the best parts are yet to come. Why stop?
I drink, swishing some of the water around, letting it slide down my throat rather than gulping it—I savor it. There is nothing wrong with gargling a bit of water. My lips make contact with the rim of the cup—cracked, scaly, and blistered, they press against it.
I swallow what insignificant amount of water remains after a good gargle and swish. I sigh as I lick my just-moistened lips, and trudge on through my bad storytelling.
9 theodore: Dangling
“The next morning, I woke up and snapped to my feet. I had that feeling again: the presence of someone. Prying eyes were watching me, and my amulet started to glow faintly but ominously. Even though Zane had my best intentions at heart, I still felt troubled.”
The house was abnormally quiet and echoed every move I made; the crack of my joints, or the shuffling of my dirty callused feet across the wooden floor. Usually, I heard the background sound of the news echoing from the radio in the kitchen or my Grandma’s rocking chair, creaking as she rocked with a word-find booklet in hand.
I had my blanket wrapped about my body like a cocoon, and grasped it firmly to avoid any cold drafts as I straggled through the house. I shed my cotton chrysalis and searched the whole house as if I was in a SWAT team about to engage in close quarters combat. The entire house was empty. My eyes darted about, betraying my apprehension.
I looked through the window at the backyard. As I saw a revolting sight near the wood-line, fear gripped my heart. I gasped; surely I did not see what I thought I had just seen.
Sticking out, behind the shed in the backyard, two sets of legs stretched out on the grass. The accompanying feet were concealed by rose bushes.
‘Grandma! Grandpa!’ I screamed as terror threatened to throttle my throat. I panicked and ran through the porch, and bolted down the downtrodden steps. In my haste, I tripped over the steps near the grass, dropping to all fours. A couple of my fingers sunk through the ground and my fingernails were caked with dirt.
When I arrived at the shed, I found lifeless and eyes peering upward at the clouded sky, those of my grandma and grandpa. Horrified, I rubbed my eyes for tears, but nothing was there. I pulled my curled hands away from my eyes. Marvin’s face suddenly changed to the actor’s from the black and white movie that I had watched last night. With a wink, he turned his head to me and said, ‘Here’s looking at you, Ted.’
I heard a twig snap behind me. I turned, and my eyes were staring down the barrel of a forty-five caliber pistol. The handgun trembled in the hands of none other than the person who desired me dead, Travis Jackson. His eyes were those of a demon’s. Grinning malevolently, he pulled the trigger. POP! I winced and closed my eyes when the gun fired. No bullet exploding into my skull yet. I opened my eyes again, and saw a tiny black flag extending outward from the barrel of the gun that read in white letters, you are dead!
I awoke, sweating. It was a dream.
My neck was incredibly sore. I sat up to catch m
y breath and rubbed my neck.
I looked down toward my feet, and I found a present. A perfectly wrapped gift lay upon the ground next to my bedpost. On the gift lay a tag that read: Open now. Was I still dreaming? It was not Christmas, not by a long shot. Excited, I opened the present. It was a brand-new pair of basketball shoes: magnificent and top of the line.
They didn’t feel like regular shoes. When I lifted them out of the packaging, they must have weighed twenty-five pounds each. I used both hands to pull them out one by one. I fumbled and dropped the second shoe, and it slammed the wooden floor with a large bang.
‘Is everything alright in there?’ my grandmother hollered from the living room.
I yelled back and told her everything was okay. It was a good feeling to hear her voice after that nightmare. I sat there, contemplating whether I should trust that gift. I was afraid that if I put them on, my feet would explode. It was time to consult my on-board nanocom. I lifted my hand and from my palm appeared a tiny hologram. I studied the image intently: yes, futuristic, awesome shoes much like mine, but completely different in concept. The holographic shoes appeared to be made of metal. Not only that, mechanical components adorned these shoes. I had to communicate with Nezatron directly in thought to be sure of what I had in my possession.
I emitted a thought. Nezatron, this is Theodore.
‘Theodore? This is Nezatron. How can I be of assistance?’ he asked over the nanocom.
I thought—I found some shoes in my room today. They look like basketball shoes, but displayed differently on my IPU. Did you send them to me? They weigh a ton.
‘Theodore, the popular and trendy shoes that you currently see lying at your feet are not what they seem. They are actually shrouded by a hologram. Their true nomenclature is X73-21. They are the twenty-first model from a series of porta-transmechanical lifters. In fifteen-year-old language, they are shoes that can help you fly, dude. I suppose that explains their weight. These shoes operate on the same technology as your palm device and function on your brainwaves. You can use these shoes to jump higher and run faster. I apologize. I am not trying to sound like a shoe jingle from the nineteen-fifties.’ He paused because of my confusion. ‘The one and only disappointment is that you must reprogram the shoes to present a holographic image of the current shoes you own. We don’t want you to be obligated to explain where you received your X73-21’s.’
I took a glance at my old shoes. They had been so worn and dirty that they were grayish brown, rather than the original white. He was right.
Nezatron had the tendency to release too much information. Like back on the Uriel, when he said my great grandpa Willard cheated on his wife. Although, it was the truth, it wasn’t necessary information to divulge. It also pained me to hear it.
I slipped the shoes on. The paired contraption wasn’t as comfortable as one might imagine. After the shoes formed to my feet, they made an uncomfortable connection. It felt like a million needles stabbing into my feet at once. My tingling feet seemed asleep, like when I sat for far too long.
I thought, can you tell me how to use these things, and can you do it in kid language?
‘I will grant you your request,’ Nezatron said. His upcoming uneasy pause alerted me to a disclaimer to follow: ‘but you must know that I have strict instructions from Zane regarding my explanations on your nanocom. Namely, high, exact standards in my pontification. He didn’t give me clearance to speak using ‘kid language.’ So I will have to take it up with him, Teddy,’ he said, and then he broke into an awkward robotic laugh.
‘Hey that is cool. I like it when you talk like that. How is it that you are laughing? Robots don’t have feelings.’
‘You are going to get me into a bind with my maker. Listen, robots in my time are advanced beyond anything you could fathom. Even with all the modifications we just made to your neuro-pathways, you still could not understand. I am Sepheran—not robotic. I am programmed to feel. I have been programmed to respond to one million, three hundred thousand, and two hundred and six humorous stimuli. The stimuli cause me to react to a laugh or joke. It is my program, but occurs without hesitation and processing. It is similar to your conscious state of mind. I know humor by definition and try to compute it and respond—dude.’
Wow, that is awesome—I thought.
‘No Teddy, Zane is awesome, after all, he created me,’ Nezatron said, before he switched to an audio playback of the tutorial for the X73-21.
After I began listening to the tutorial, I heard a muffled crackle, then a rustle outside my window. It sounded like someone stepped on a cockroach.
Someone was watching me. I could feel it.
Nezatron interjected, causing me to temporarily disregard my own uneasy feeling:
‘Oh, did I forget to mention the shoes can make invisible anyone who wears them. I saved the best part for last. So, surprise!’ I could detect a slight quiver of glee in his voice. He continued, ’I spoke with Zane just now, and I now have his permission. He said I could translate information into a form that might be easier for you to understand. Therefore, I guess that makes us pals. I will be monitoring this channel as well as Migalt. I am not your personal assistant. I have a job to do too, so please don’t rely on me to answer every time I am summoned. Relax dude, and let me know if you need anything. The shoes take about five minutes to calibrate to a human’s feet. See ya, would not want to be ya.’
I was curious for a moment about how the shoes made me invisible, but instead chose to understand that some things just cannot be explained. I left it alone.
With Nezatron absent from my thoughts, I rubbed my forehead. There were trickles of sweat running down my temples. I remembered where I had felt that dread. Fear seized my heart like a vice. Afraid to verify anything, I turned slowly, rotating toward the window.
I gave a short silent scream.
Travis was staring into my room! He looked around curiously, but he didn’t stop to lock onto me with his eyes.
Frightened and desperate, I attempted to channel my thoughts to the loquacious robot:
Nezatron, he is here. Travis is outside my house!
Nezatron replied calmly, as if speaking in a tut-tut manner, ‘I am running a check on the perimeter and the only heat signatures I am finding are yours and your grandmother’s.’
When I looked again, there was a burst of light and singed grass. Travis was nowhere to be seen. I sighed with huge relief. I guess I was experiencing hallucinations because of all the overwhelming changes pre-ordained into my mission.
Yes, crazy things were happening: flying shoes, communicating telepathically across light-years of space with a mechanical being, and invisibility. It all was every kid’s dream come true. It took a while to complete the programming but the shoes finally calibrated to my feet. I moaned happily. The comfort I had from these dream shoes was amazing.
I downloaded Aikido instructional videos from Nezatron. I decided that training every night in martial arts would be the best course of action. I had to do something to protect the people I was dragging into that mess. Travis wanted something from me. I just couldn't put my finger on it. I felt that if he wanted to kill me, then why was he scoping out my house? Why didn't the Dacturons just drop a bomb on it or blast it from space with a giant laser?
Yes, I had to plan. I paced around my bedroom, muttering to myself. Focus needed to be shifted around finding three more individuals. I had Lincoln, but that wasn’t enough. I knew that if someone entrusted me to do a task, even if it was a small task, I had to complete it.
It wasn’t my job to judge what was significant and what was trivial, because even the smallest error could carry devastating consequences. It was a concept that I was just recently acquainted with by my newfound knowledge of time and place. I could be two minutes early for school, or two minutes late, yet one or the other scenario could forever alter the future, beyond my control.
I took off for Lincoln’s house immediately. It wasn’t as easy as one might think. I
was having difficulty harnessing my shoes’ power.
Through intense trial and error, and some road-rash, I found that I could propel myself on my banana skateboard without pushing off the ground. I was cruising. Every time I was around people, I pushed along the ground to front as a kid propelling his board normally. I didn’t need any unnecessary attention. The air was forced against my face and pulled my cheeks back slightly, and I swallowed a bug. I figured it was probably a good idea to keep my mouth shut after that.
I arrived at Lincoln’s house with just a tiny amount of energy expended. I decided not to tell Lincoln about the shoes, unless I absolutely had to. It was in his character to want scientific data for every new variable, which usually meant I was going to be a lab rat. I wasn’t going to be a rat that day.
‘Yo, if it isn’t the missing Linc. What is up buddy?’ I asked, while Lincoln gave me a look like something was amok. He stood behind his wrought-iron door with some window cleaner in one-hand and paper towels in the other.
‘My dad is uncontrollably and disruptively cleaning the house right now. So, if we know what is good for us, we will go somewhere else!’ Lincoln shouted over the roar of the vacuum cleaner. It smelt like dust everywhere, as if Lincoln’s father was determined to aggravate his son’s sinus condition. We knew he didn’t intend to.
‘Let’s go out to your lean-to,’ I said, and started to walk with Lincoln, ‘So check it out. I spoke with Nezatron today. I now have a direct link to both him and Migalt. So I feel safer, only problem is, I have been seeing Travis in my dreams and—’
‘What? Tell me dude!’ Lincoln asked.
‘I thought I saw him outside my window today. I was out of his sight, so he didn’t see me, but he knows where I live, and he had guts enough to stand outside. Nezatron says I’ve been imagining things, but man, I gotta be careful.’ I paused. ‘I thought that if Marvin saw him, he could be done for. I think he is using some sort of port, because where he stood, the ground and the bush next to the window were burnt.’