Hell's Nerds and Other Tales

by Stephen Lomer

  “Can’t they whip you up a kid in one of those Genome Labs?” Lou asked. “Just take some of your DNA and stick some other DNA on it and make a baby?”

  “Yes,” Devon said patiently, “of course they can, but that costs money, Lou! I need a free solution here!”

  Lou took in a deep breath and puffed out his cheeks as he blew it out slowly. “I’m sorry, kiddo. It looks like your futurcation just ain’t in the cards.”

  Devon sighed. “In that case, you may as well get me some decent booze,” he said, draining the last of his drink. “It’ll help kill the pain. And no point in hoarding my credits anymore, right?”

  “I’ll get you the good stuff,” Lou said, shuffling off toward the far end of the bar, “but keep your credits. It’s on the house.”

  Devon was about to offer his thanks to the old man when he felt a gentle buzzing in his ear. A woman’s soft voice said, “Caller unknown. Caller unknown.”

  He was about to dismiss it as he usually did, but on impulse, he tapped his ear. “Hello?”

  “Mister Zayre?” a familiar voice said.

  “Yes.”

  “This is Fred Sine down at CallosumCorp.”

  Devon’s heart leapt.

  “Oh, hi. Mr. Sine. Uh, what can I do for you?”

  “Well, there’s been a development regarding your futurcation,” Mr. Sine said. “Are you still in the area?”

  “Not exactly. But I can be there in no time,” Devon said, his breath short, his heart racing.

  “Why don’t we say three o’clock then?”

  “I’ll be there!” Devon said, much too loudly, drawing curious stares from the other barflies. He dropped his voice down. “I’ll be there.”

  Devon was in the CallosumCorp lobby by two o’clock, and paced so restlessly that the android greeter asked him several times if he’d like a White Rabbit, the latest trendy downer.

  “No thanks,” he repeatedly told her, and continued to walk the same path back and forth across the glowing tiles.

  Finally, at three o’clock on the nose, the android called his name. “Mister Zayre?”

  Devon dashed over to her.

  “Yes.”

  “Mister Sine will see you now,” she said, and informed him of the room number, but he was already halfway down the hall. He pressed his hand once again on the plate next to room 1138 and the door slid away, revealing Mr. Sine, who was studying a glowing vid screen.

  “Devon,” Sine said, standing and gesturing for Devon to sit in the guest chair. “Thanks so much for coming back. Please, make yourself comfortable.”

  Devon sat, certain that he was going to explode at any moment.

  “You said there was a . . . development with my futurcation?” he asked.

  “Yes indeed,” Sine said, pressing a panel on his desk to close the office door. “You see, Devon, here at CallosumCorp, we think it’s important to go the extra mile. To do whatever it takes to make our clients happy. When I saw you leave here earlier today, I said to myself, ‘That right there is not a happy client.’ So I decided to do a little digging.”

  Sine tapped away on his virtual keyboard, and then turned to Devon.

  “Do you know a woman named Cylie Abernathy?”

  The question was so random and unexpected that Devon completely forgot to be nervous or excited.

  “Um . . . yeah. I do. Well, I did.”

  Sine lowered his voice. “I’ll do everything I can to be delicate here, Devon, but several years ago, you had a night of sexual congress with Miss Abernathy?”

  “Well . . . yeah. As a matter of fact, I was just talking about her with someone earlier today. But how did you—?”

  Sine held up his hand. “Some of what we do here at CallosumCorp . . . well, let’s just say, dances on the edge of what’s legal. It’s best if you don’t ask too many questions.”

  Devon opened his mouth to ask the first of many questions, but then remembered his futurcation and shut it again.

  “Good,” Sine said. “Now Miss Abernathy never told you, but she conceived that night.”

  “What?”

  “Yes indeed,” Mr. Sine said, consulting his display. “Nine months after your dalliance, she gave birth to a baby girl.”

  Devon couldn’t think. The implications of all of this were too difficult, too vast to absorb. He simply sat in stunned silence while Sine continued.

  “Miss Abernathy was in a relationship at the time, and simply allowed her then-boyfriend to believe the child was his,” Sine said. He swung the display and the keyboard off to the side, smiled, and spread his arms wide. “So look at that! You have all the benefits of having a child and none of the responsibility! And we can move forward with your futurcation!”

  “I . . .” Devon said, a loud clicking in his throat as he swallowed hard. “Did you . . .? Cylie and I . . .”

  “Made a baby, yes,” Sine said simply.

  “I’m . . . I’m a father?”

  Sine looked up and rocked his head from side to side. “Mmmm, I suppose it depends on your definition of ‘father.’ I mean, you supplied the genetic material, but that’s where your involvement ended, really.”

  “A girl,” Devon said breathlessly, as if he couldn’t wrap his head around the concept. “Do you know her name?”

  “Oh, now, Devon,” Sine said, standing up and coming around the desk to have a closer conversation, “As I said, digging up this information falls in a very gray area. And besides, you’re focusing on the wrong thing! You can take your futurcation now!”

  “Yeah . . .” Devon said, getting his wits about him once more. “Yeah, of course. Sorry. Futurcation, right. Um, when do we start?”

  “We can start anytime you like,” Mr. Sine said. “How about right now?”

  The sense of heady excitement drove everything else out of Devon’s mind. “Right now would be great.”

  Devon spent a short while filling out some virtual paperwork and handing over his credits to be deposited into the CallosumCorp account. As soon as everything was complete, Mr. Sine led him to a hyperlift at the end of the corridor where his office was. They dropped down a number of floors, and when the lift doors hissed open, Devon found himself in a massive, stark-white chamber with glowing blue anti-grav beds floating along both walls. CallosumCorp technicians moved from one glowing console to another, and clients were being placed on beds, already in them, or being helped out.

  Mr. Sine led Devon to a bed halfway down the left wall. He opened a compartment on the side of the bed and pulled out a handful of micro-monitors, which he attached to Devon’s forehead and temples.

  “Please,” Sine said, lowering the bed so that Devon could get in comfortably.

  “Okay, we’ve got your DNA mapped, we’ve got your brain on continuous scan in case anything goes sideways. Looks like we’re ready. Nervous?”

  Devon took in a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He nodded, smiling nervously.

  “You’re going to have an amazing futurcation,” Sine said. “Now you’ll be spending two weeks there mentally, but for me your trip will be instantaneous. So I will see you momentarily. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  Sine shook his hand one more time, and then stepped back from the bed. Devon found himself suddenly sleepy, and closed his eyes. Everything faded to black.

  “Edwin?” a voice was saying to him. “Edwin? You okay?”

  He blinked a few times, momentarily disoriented. He was outside somewhere. A blinding sun looked down from a flawless blue sky. Birds were whistling. He could feel his bare feet in cool grass.

  “Edwin,” said the voice, a little more urgently. “Hey.”

  He turned his head and saw that he was on a park bench, and the owner of the voice was sitting next to him. She was young, with fair skin and blonde hair tipped in black.

  “Hm?” was all Devon could manage. He was still trying to get his bearings.

  “I asked if you’re all right,” the girl said.

  “Oh,” Devon
said. “Yes. Yes, I’m fine.”

  The girl didn’t look entirely convinced, but she didn’t press the matter. “Well, come on,” she said. “We have to go.”

  She pressed a button that was somehow mapped on the skin of her left forearm, and the day ended with a cruel ferocity: the sun, the sky, the grass, the bench, everything disappeared in a low hum and a cold, gray holo-matrix replaced it. Devon looked down and saw a pair of shoes nearby. He slid his feet in. They were extraordinarily comfortable.

  A door slid open and Devon followed the girl out of it. He found himself on a city sidewalk, and figures were passing by, all of them in a terrible hurry. The skyline of the city he knew was still there, but had been built upon and expanded in every direction. There were hovercars and what looked to be starships coming and going from the floating spacescrapers. He drank it all in. The future, he thought, and his heart swelled. I did it! My futurcation!

  “You hungry?” the girl asked him, and he nodded, still staring at the vista before him.

  “Where should we go?” she pressed. “Antonio’s?”

  He nodded again, and she watched him closely as he fell into step with her down the crowded sidewalk.

  Antonio’s was a small, welcoming restaurant a few blocks away. A woman greeted them as they entered, and Devon examined her closely, trying to discern if she was human, android, or something else entirely.

  “Edwin,” she nodded toward him. “Raven. Wonderful to see you both again. Please follow me.”

  She moved away from the greeter’s station and Devon saw that she only existed down to the waist. Below that was a glowing purple anti-grav unit that guided her effortlessly through the place.

  She led them to a table near the back. Raven sat, but Devon remained standing.

  “I’m just going to wash my hands,” he said, and Raven looked at him, baffled.

  “Do what?”

  “Wash my hands,” he repeated. “Use the men’s room.”

  He left her quizzical stare and angled toward a small corridor off the main dining area. He found a door marked “M” and went inside.

  Right away, he went for the mirror to get a look at himself. He was a young man, probably about the same age he was in his own time, and he was quite good-looking. His hair was just as dark as his own, but his eyes were a piercing blue. He smiled, wondering when blue eyes had entered his family tree, since every relative he’d ever known had brown. His jaw was wide and strong, and his frame was slight but well-proportioned. He could see a few genetic traits that were his own, but this young man was definitely several generations removed.

  Devon giggled, and saw the reflection giggle back. “Are you my great-grandson?” he asked himself. “My great-great-grandson?”

  He thought of Raven waiting at the table and decided that research into who he was and how he was related to himself could wait. He placed his hands down under the tap, and sonic waves hummed out of it, evidently breaking up any dirt or bacteria on them. No wonder Raven hadn’t understood the notion of washing one’s hands.

  He came back to the table and sat down. Raven was reading a flashing blue message on her forearm, and when she looked up at him, her entire demeanor had changed.

  “So,” she said, smirking. “You’re Devon.”

  He felt a hot drop of fear in his stomach.

  “No,” he said casually. “I’m—” But he blanked on the name she had called him.

  “Relax,” Raven said. “I know you’re not Edwin. He had an implant put in to signal me if his brain patterns ever went shinky. And they just did. Your brain patterns match Devon’s.”

  “Oh,” Devon said. “And here I was thinking I could spend my whole futurcation incognito.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Raven said. “I won’t tell anyone.”

  They sat in awkward silence for a few moments, and then Devon nodded toward her.

  “So you’re Raven?”

  “Yes,” she said, and extended her hand to shake his. “I suppose it’s weird, me calling you Devon when you’re properly my . . .” She looked up as she thought it over. “. . . great-great-great-great-grandfather.”

  “So then you’re—”

  “Edwin’s sister, yes,” she said. “Twin sister, actually.”

  “Wow,” Devon said, marvelling. “Well this couldn’t have worked out any better. You can tell me all about my family’s future.”

  “Only if you promise to tell me about the family’s past.”

  Devon followed Raven’s lead when it came to ordering his part of the meal, and was disappointed when the food that arrived at the table was nothing more than colorless, bland-looking squares of some kind of gel.

  “Don’t worry,” Raven assured him, “you’ll love it.”

  He popped one of the squares on his tongue and was amazed when it exploded into a symphony of taste and texture. Raven laughed at the expression of pure delight on his face.

  “So,” he said, as he sampled one square after another, “am I on your mother’s side or your father’s?”

  “My mother’s,” Raven said, selecting squares of her own. “Hold on, I can show you.”

  She lifted her wrist up to her mouth and muttered, “Family tree.” Her forearm lit up with a series of squares and lines that showed the direct lineage from Devon to her.

  “Wow,” Devon said. “Entire lifetimes that haven’t even happened yet. For me, that is.”

  “You enjoying the food?” she asked.

  “It’s the most extraordinary food I’ve ever tasted,” he said, smiling.

  “Good,” she said, looking over his shoulder. Her expression suddenly darkened. “The hell are they doing in here?”

  “Hm?” was all he had time to say before he was hoisted roughly out of his chair by two police bots. One pushed him violently down on the table while the other lashed energy cuffs around his wrists.

  “Devon Zayre,” one of the bots buzzed tonelessly. “You are under arrest for the murder of Lance Cassaday.”

  “What?” Devon shouted. “Now wait a minute!”

  “You have the right to remain silent,” the bot continued. “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be provided for you. Do you understand the rights I have just dictated to you?”

  “I didn’t kill anybody!” Devon shouted as the bots hoisted him up and began leading him toward the front of the restaurant.

  “Do you understand the rights I have just dictated to you?” the bot persisted.

  “Raven!” he called over his shoulder, but he couldn’t see her. “Raven! Help me!”

  “Do you understand the rights I have just dictated to you?”

  A few hours later, Devon found himself in a small, shabby room at the police headquarters. He was surrounded on all sides by force fields. As he watched, a small bit of lint blew across the floor and touched the force field to his right, setting off a discharge of energy that turned the lint immediately to ash.

  As he watched, a portly man with a bulbous nose and long, wispy white hair hurried through an outer door. He spoke to the robot guard for a moment, and one of the force fields lowered to allow him in.

  “Sorry I’m late,” the man said to Devon as he sat down across the table from him. “My hyperjet’s in the shop. I’m Lalo, your court-appointed attorney.”

  “I didn’t do anything!” Devon said immediately. Lalo laughed.

  “Oh, if I had half a credit for every client who said that,” he mused. “Okay, let’s see here, what are we dealing with?” He consulted his forearm display, just as Raven had. “Oh my. Murder. Well that’s gonna be a bitch.”

  “I told you, I didn’t do anything!” Devon insisted. “I’m here on a futurcation! I haven’t murdered anyone! This is absurd!”

  “Wellnow let’s see,” Lalo said, pressing a few buttons and changing the display. “According to this, you killed Lance Cassaday with your bare hands. Wow, your
bare hands. Brutal.”

  “I don’t even know who that is!” Devon shouted. “I don’t know any Lance Cassaday!”

  “Huh,” Lalo said indifferently. “According to this, you return to your own time from your futurcation, and a few days later you commit the murder.”

  “But that doesn’t make any sense!” Devon insisted. “Who the hell is Lance Cassaday?”

  “Well, he’s the husband of Cylie Abernathy,” Lalo said. “Does that name ring a bell?”

  Devon froze. His mouth went suddenly dry.

  “Yeah,” he said, a lump in his throat. “That name I know.”

  “Well, at least you know somebody,” said Lalo. “Any reason you can think of that you’d wanna kill him?”

  “I, uh . . . just found out that Cylie and I had a daughter together. A daughter she never told me about. And if this Lance Cassaday is her husband, he thinks the child is his.”

  Lalo nodded in understanding. “So once you get back to your own time, you can’t resist seeking out this Cylie so you can finally meet your daughter, and Lance Cassaday doesn’t care for it. Or maybe he’s a drunk or he smacks your daughter around. Either way, things get heated, you kill the guy, and Bob’s your uncle.”

  “Okay, assuming all that is true, why am I being charged with that crime here?” Devon asked. “I haven’t even done it yet!”

  “Well, from your perspective, you haven’t,” Lalo said. “But from the perspective of the law here and now, it’s a decades-old cold case that they’re about to wrap up with a pretty little bow.”

  Devon shook his head in frustration. “All right, so tell me this—I’m on a two-week futurcation. Once my two weeks is up, I return to my own body, my own consciousness. If they lock me up here, in two weeks they’re going to have Edwin in prison. Edwin, who hasn’t done anything wrong!”

  “Oh, that won’t be an issue,” Lalo said.

  “Why not?”

  “Well, y’see, justice works a little differently here than it does where you come from. Trials are swift. Maybe an hour, maybe two, and you’ll have your sentence. And if you’re found guilty, it’s mandatory execution. That’s swift also.”