Hell's Nerds and Other Tales

by Stephen Lomer

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” Death said, throwing the pillow on the floor in frustration.

  Jack sat up and examined himself. There was a hole in his shirt over the spot where Death had stabbed him, and he was still soaked with blood, but the wound had completely healed. There wasn’t a scar or even a mark to be seen.

  Death folded the doctor’s arms and scowled. “It would seem,” she said at last, “that whatever gift you have with ghosts has also made you immortal.”

  “Oh yeah?” Jack asked. “Neat.”

  “No, it’s not neat,” Death said snidely. “I’m supposed to be the immortal one.”

  Jack thought it over for a moment. “We could be immortal together,” he suggested.

  Death looked at him with the doctor’s glowing red eyes. “What?”

  “I imagine immortality is probably lonely,” Jack said. “I know I don’t want to live forever all by myself.”

  Death cocked the doctor’s head to the side. “It would be kind of nice to have someone to spend time with.”

  “Okay, great,” Jack said. “But a few ground rules. First, you can’t be randomly trying to kill me like you just did.”

  Death smiled. “Sorry. I’ll try not to. But it’s what I do.”

  Jack nodded. “And you’re going to need to buy me a new shirt, because this one is my favorite and it’s all messed up now.” He held out the bloody hole to illustrate his point.

  “Fine, a new shirt,” Death said. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “You’ve got to come to terms with me channeling ghosts. Because I’m still going to.”

  Death scowled. “Well there doesn’t seem to be much I can do about that, does there? But how about we cap it? Give them all one minute, no more.”

  “Deal,” Jack said, rising and shaking the doctor’s hand.

  “So,” Death sighed. “Now what?”

  Jack thought it over. “Go get a beer?”

  Death shrugged the doctor’s shoulders. “Sure.”

  “Great,” Jack said, grabbing his coat. “Hey, can you do something about the crazy glowy eyes thing?”

  “Oh,” Death said. “No.”

  “Okay, we’ll get you some shades, you’ll look great,” Jack said. “C’mon, let’s get going. Eternity’s waiting.”

  5.

  NO PLACE LIKE HOME

  As Professor Chen entered his lab, his three assistants jumped up, their faces eager, their expressions achingly hopeful.

  He looked at them and slowly shook his head.

  “What?” Nina said, deflating just like the other two.

  “They said no,” Chen said in a flat monotone, crossing the lab and placing his briefcase on a table near the experiment’s glowing power supply.

  “But why?” asked Joseph, crossing the lab toward his mentor. “Surely they were able to see that the math checks out.”

  “Oh yes,” sighed Chen. “They were able to see that.”

  “And the tests?” asked Jodi. “Didn’t the tests count for anything?”

  “Mmm-hmm,” Chen said noncommittally. “They were all very impressed with the test results.”

  “Well then what’s the problem?” Nina asked.

  “Apparently, sending a beam of light into another dimension is fine,” Chen explained, gazing longingly at the teleportation chamber on the far side of the lab. “As is sending a cantaloupe and half a dozen white mice.”

  “But not human subjects,” Joseph finished flatly, and Chen nodded.

  Disappointment settled into the lab like freshly fallen snow. After a few silent minutes, Jodi spoke up.

  “So now what?”

  Chen took a deep breath. “Now we try and come up with a commercial application for interdimensional cantaloupes.”

  That night, Chen sat alone in his study, dictating notes into his recorder, a glass of brandy on a table near his elbow.

  “The committee said that the research shows great promise, and complimented my team and me for such groundbreaking work,” Chen said tonelessly. “But that sending humans into a parallel dimension is much too risky, and that any such test was likely decades away. If ever.”

  Chen scratched his beard, unsure how much he should say.

  “The trick is that no one on the committee knows that I don’t have decades,” he said, his voice growing huskier. “I have less than a year. I’m out of treatment options, and the disease is slowly but surely progressing.”

  He swallowed hard.

  “My only dream is to be the first human to step into another dimension, and now I’m drowning in bureaucracy and tripping on red tape. I’ve never been one to defy the university’s decisions, but I find myself in the unique position of having little left to lose.”

  An unexpected grin twitched at the corners of his mouth.

  “So one way or another,” he said, “I’m going through with it. The committee be damned.”

  Chen made his way across campus, ducking in and around the darkness and shadows of the late hour. He didn’t encounter anyone, for which he was profoundly grateful, and he scanned his pass card at the back door of Perkins Hall, letting himself into the darkened and silent building.

  He reached the lab, entered, closed the door behind him, and switched on the lights. He nearly jumped out of his skin at the sight of Joseph, Nina, and Jodi standing there, smiling at him.

  “Jesus Christ!” he cried, grabbing his chest. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Isn’t it obvious?” Jodi asked. “We’re going to assist you with your interdimensional jump.”

  Chen stared at them. “What makes you think I’m going to attempt an interdimensional jump?”

  Joseph folded his arms and cocked his head. “Professor Chen, we’ve worked together for more than three years now. We can read you like a book.”

  “Is that so?” Chen replied, folding his own arms. “All right then. What am I thinking right now?”

  “That you’re pleased we’ve already charged up the prefire chambers,” Joseph said, “since that will save a lot of time.”

  Chen frowned. “Lucky guess.”

  Nina, Joseph, and Jodi started moving about the lab, making the necessary preparations.

  “You could get expelled for this,” Chen said, taking off his jacket and loosening his tie. “You know that, right?”

  Jodi smiled at him. “Well surely there’s a university in a parallel dimension that will have us,” she said brightly.

  An hour later, all of the equipment was powered up and humming. Professor Chen, with Nina’s help, had fastened the oxygen helmet to his environmental suit. She pressed a few buttons near his right shoulder and he heard a faint crackle and whine, and then Nina’s voice coming through the speakers near his ears.

  “You okay?” she asked.

  “Fine,” he said, checking the range of motion in his arms and legs. “I suppose I should have peed first, though, huh?”

  Nina laughed and Joseph crossed the lab to join them. “Just remember, if you use the men’s room at an interdimensional 7-11, be sure to make a small purchase.”

  “I only hope they take debit cards,” Chen replied.

  Jodi swung open the dimensional displacement chamber door, made a few adjustments inside, and looked over. “We’re ready,” she said simply.

  Nina and Joseph each grabbed an arm and helped Professor Chen cross the lab. He stepped up into the chamber and then clumsily turned around to face them.

  “Thank you all,” Chen said sincerely.

  “Our pleasure,” Joseph replied.

  “See you soon,” Jodi said.

  “We’ve got the interdimensional tether set to maximum,” Nina said. “If things go tits up, just give a tug and we’ll get you back pronto.”

  “I’ll be sure to take lots of pictures,” Chen said. He nodded to his students and they all nodded back, and then Jodi swung the chamber door shut and sealed it.

  There was only a small porthole window through which Chen
could see the lab, but his students were all out of sight, tending to various controls. He suddenly felt very alone, and butterflies began to take flight in his stomach. His breathing sounded very loud in his helmet.

  The chamber suddenly lit with a bright pink light, and a low, resonating hum. Chen could feel the vibration throughout his body, as though every nerve was spasming at once.

  The hum continued to build in loudness and intensity, and the light brightened from bright pink to the purest white. Everything was happening just as it had in every experiment they’d performed. Professor Chen was counting down in his head to the moment when the dimensional portal would open and pull him through when he suddenly heard something under the loud thrumming of the chamber. It sounded like panicked shouting. Through the all-enveloping light, he thought he saw the outline of a hand pounding on the chamber door’s porthole window

  . . . and then blackness seized him and he passed out.

  Professor Chen came very slowly back to consciousness, opening his eyes one at a time and taking slow, deep breaths. He stood with some difficulty, the world coming grudgingly into focus, and adrenaline shot into his veins. The scientist part of him told him to resist making a conclusion by what he was seeing, but the non-scientist part was ready to declare that his trip had been successful.

  The ground he stood on radiated an alternating red and yellow glow. In some spots it looked like pockmarked rock; in others, like highly polished glass. He shuffled his feet clumsily and made a slow circle in his environmental suit. The horizon stretched endlessly in every direction under an inky, blue-black sky.

  It suddenly occurred to him to activate the display on the inside of his facemask and check his vital signs and take readings on this new place. Numbers and graphs popped up in front of him and he ran through them quickly. His oxygen level and heart rate were both normal, as was his body temperature. The atmosphere outside the suit appeared to be somewhat hostile, but no more so than many deserts in his home dimension. There was definitely breathable air, but Chen thought it best to remain protected for the time being.

  Another light popped up on the display, one that he didn’t recognize, and it took him a few moments to realize that the light was coming from outside. He turned off the display and squinted toward the horizon, where the pinprick of light was growing steadily brighter. His heart began hammering in his chest at the thought of what he was about to encounter.

  When it was close enough, he could see that the light was some sort of floating, glowing disk, and there was something that appeared to be riding it.

  It was a creature of some sort. It looked not unlike a velociraptor, except it had silvery skin, a more flattened face, and longer arms. It rode the disk like a surfboard, and when it reached Chen, it dismounted and landed gracefully on the pulsing, glowing ground. The disk hovered a few feet away.

  Professor Chen braced himself, completely unsure what to expect. But the last thing he ever imagined was that the creature would greet him in a clipped, British accent.

  “Professor Chen!” it said enthusiastically, smiling and presenting rows of long, sharp teeth. “Welcome! How are you?”

  “How . . . how am I?” Professor Chen said, completely flummoxed.

  “Yes, my dear man,” the creature said. “Are you well? Unharmed, I hope?”

  “Uh,” Chen said, unsure. “Yeah. Yes. I’m fine, thank you. Fine.”

  “Splendid!” the creature said.

  “I do have a lot of questions,” Chen said, gaining his footing.

  “Ah,” the creature said, its smile fading. “Yes. Well, you see, I’m a . . . oh, what’s the word? A conduit. No, that’s not right. A liaison? Hmm, that’s closer.”

  “An ambassador?” Chen offered up.

  The creature’s smile reappeared. “Yes!” it cried. “Yes, that’s precisely it, an ambassador. And as such, I’m not really authorized to answer questions. But I am here to take you to those who will.”

  “I see,” Professor Chen nodded. “Well . . . is there something I can call you, at least? Do you have a name?”

  “I do, but it’s exceedingly difficult to pronounce,” the creature said dismissively. “You may call me whatever you like.”

  “Will ‘Raptor’ do?” Chen asked, with a small smile.

  “Certainly,” the creature said.

  “Fine then,” Chen said. “Raptor.”

  “Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way, would you come with me, please?” Raptor said politely. “I know you must be eager to ask your questions, and we have a long way to go.”

  “Lead the way,” Chen said.

  Raptor nodded and turned toward the glowing disk. It suddenly split into two identical disks, and one slid under Raptor’s feet while the other slid under Chen’s. He felt himself being lifted a few feet off the ground, and then he was moving forward, held perfectly upright somehow, Raptor a little bit ahead of him and to his left.

  They traveled for quite some time, the landscape remaining the same. Chen scanned restlessly for some sign of a building or a tree or a volcano, something he could use as a touchstone, but there was nothing to interrupt the glowing, flat surface. He was just starting to get impatient, his scientific curiosity beginning to wane, when he saw it.

  Ahead of them yawned a massive canyon, one that made the famous one in Arizona look like a gopher hole. It had to be hundreds of miles across, and stretched to infinity in both directions. As he and Raptor approached the lip, Chen had a moment of panic when he was sure the disk carrying him would just plummet down to the bottom, but the disk kept skimming along as though the canyon wasn’t even there.

  Chen looked down. The canyon wasn’t as deep as he’d expected, and it was crisscrossed with beams of light similar to the disks. They were being used as bridges by creatures just like Raptor, moving here and there, and down below them, at the very bottom of the canyon, were small pinkish-white creatures that Chen couldn’t quite make out.

  Chen opened his mouth to start hammering Raptor with questions, but remembered that he wasn’t authorized to answer. Instead he stared hungrily at the alien landscape below him, memorizing everything he could so that when the time came to ask questions, he’d be ready.

  Once past the canyon, they approached what Chen had been looking for all along—a city. The buildings were dome-shaped and many of them stretched so far to the sky that their tops were lost in the clouds. They were built of the same strange light as the disks and the walkways in the canyon.

  There were many more creatures now, and as Raptor and Chen passed through toward the heart of the city, they stopped what they were doing to look. Chen began to feel uncomfortable, as though he’d been thrust under a great spotlight, but remembered that he was the first human to cross over into their dimension. It was only natural they’d be curious.

  At last they arrived in front of a magnificent palace. The light that composed the many turrets and spires was golden instead of white, and Chen marveled at the pure beauty of it.

  Raptor jumped down from his light disk and offered a steadying hand to Chen.

  “We’ve arrived,” Raptor said. “I’ve no doubt you have even more questions now than before.”

  “Quite a few,” Chen said, drinking in the shimmering archway that led into the palace. He noticed that the creatures around the palace were carrying long, serrated spears and wore helmets and armor.

  “Well, you’ll soon have all your answers,” Raptor said, but without a smile and without looking Chen in the eye. “This way, please.”

  They entered the palace over a shimmering drawbridge and passed into a cavernous main hall. At the far end of the hall sat seven of the creatures behind a table of golden light, seated on high-backed glowing chairs. The left and right walls were lined with more armed creatures standing at attention.

  Raptor and Chen approached the creature at the center spot of the table.

  “Professor Chen,” Raptor said as an introduction, bowing his head. He then stepped bac
kward and off to the side.

  The creature was slightly larger than Raptor, and had none of the good humor of Raptor’s face. He eyed Chen beadily, and had an air of impatience about him.

  Several seconds passed. Chen was unsure who was supposed to speak first. He looked over at Raptor, but Raptor’s eyes were downcast.

  “If you have questions,” the head creature grunted finally, “ask them now.”

  “Oh,” Chen replied. “Yes. Uh, where am I?”

  The head creature frowned at him. “If you have specific questions, ask them now,” he said.

  “My apologies.” Chen thought it over. “What dimension is this?”

  “We refer to it as Dimension 6971,” the creature said.

  I did it, Chen thought. I really did it. I crossed over to another dimension.

  “And what species are you?”

  “We are known as the Xor,” the creature replied.

  “Fascinating,” Chen said. “Xor. And this city? What is this city called?”

  The head creature finally smiled, revealing even longer, sharper teeth than Raptor’s. He made a chuckling sound, as did the rest of the creatures seated at the table.

  “Detroit,” the head creature said simply.

  Professor Chen felt himself smile. “But that’s extraordinary! We have a Detroit where I come from! Tell me more about this Detroit.”

  “It’s a city in Michigan,” the head creature said. “Known primarily for the auto industry and a sub-par football team.”

  The surrounding creatures all made the chuckling sound again.

  “I’m not sure I understand,” Professor Chen said.

  “The only reason you’re standing here in our presence, Professor Chen,” the head creature said, “is because we owe you a debt of gratitude.”

  “Gratitude?”

  “Indeed. Your interdimensional device didn’t send you anywhere. You’re still on Earth,” the creature said.

  Chen felt his heart drop into his stomach and all the blood drain from his face.