Fast Forward

Chapter 6

Dealing with Aun Swan was still a day away and Calvin was now living in the future. What happened to my family, Calvin wondered. Swan said she was going to look into that. Calvin looked into his briefcase and found a folder labeled, “Family”.

There was only one son listed. Barney James. He was Calvin’s great, great, great grandson. He was listed as a Conservative and he was in hiding. So Calvin had no family to turn to in 2115. He looked at Barney’s photo. Barney reminded him of himself when he was in his twenty’s.

Calvin decided to check out the other house mates of mine. Nathan seemed to be the business man and the one in charge here so he thought he’d look for him. Calvin figured he’d probably be in the back yard. He put on some shorts and a t-shirt (both found in the chester drawer) and headed down stairs and out into the back yard.

It wasn’t a very large back yard but it wasn’t that small. If anything, the swimming pool was probably too big. It took up almost the entire back yard leaving just a little room to walk around it.

Calvin asked a young woman in a bathing suit (what else would she be wearing?) if she knew where Nathan was and she quickly pointed him out to Calvin. He was on the other side of the swimming pool sitting with his feet dangling in the deep end. He was waving his arms about wildly as he told a large group standing around him an engrossing story. Calvin could barley make out every other word as the entire back yard was filled with people but he managed to make my way back until he was standing next to Nathan.

Nathan looked young. Calvin guessed Nathan was about 25 or younger. He was white, wore glasses with a couple odd antennas and had an strange short beard that covered just his upper neck. As he told his story, he suddenly jumped up and Calvin could see he was easily over six feet tall.

“…and then she backed out of the kitchen and I haven’t seen her since!”, he said flinging his arms out wildly. The entire backyard broke out in laughter as many of them made odd gestures at him somewhat similar to a high five except they used their elbows instead. Others beat their chest with odd animal grunting sounds.

“I’m your new house mate”, Calvin managed to say when he got close enough. “Can I talk with you inside?”.

He looked at Calvin oddly for a moment, “You look familiar”. He then shook his head and they managed to work their way back inside the house.

“We heard about you, you know”, he said as he led the way to his room.

“You have?”.

“Yeah, Aun Swan, called and told us that you’re due to have your Equalizer installed tomorrow. I can’t say I’m happy to have the law dropping by our house, but if you just do what you’re told it’ll be better for all of us”.

“Look”, I said, “I don’t want to get anyone in trouble. I have no idea why I’m here or how I got here, but I’m here”.

Nathan opened his bedroom door and we walk in. Nathans room was unusual because it didn’t look like anything Calvin had seen in 2115 up to this point. It was very clean, modern and even futuristic. His furniture was a glossy black metallic material that served form and function. Calvin had prided himself on knowing what was out there when it came to top of the line electronics, but this was beyond him. He motioned Calvin to have a seat in a chair that floated over to Calvin.

“How do I sit in that?”, Calvin asked, “It’s not touching the floor”.

A chair floated over to Nathan and he just sat in it. It held him up just fine.

“Oh”, Calvin said sitting on the floating chair. “I wanted to ask you something”, Calvin said pulling out the photo of his only living relative. “Do you know this man?”.

“Whoa, where did you get that?”, Nathan asked taking the photo from Calvin. “Did Aun Swan give this to you?”.

“Yeah, why do you ask?”

“Because that’s Jesse”.

“Jesse…James?”, Calvin asked.

“Oh, yeah”, Nathan said getting to his feet. He started pacing back and forth.

“What’s going on?”, Calvin asked.

Nathan ignored Calvin and said, “Guys, get in here, we have a problem”.

Within seconds, Gregory came in followed by the other house mate that I hadn’t met yet.

“You must be Ancil”, Calvin said shaking his hand as he walked in.

“Hey”, Ancil said looking at Calvin briefly. “You look familiar”, he said.

“You didn’t notice, Gregory?”, Nathan asked.

“Oh, you know me, I’m not good with faces or names”, Gregory said.

“Does this help?”, Nathan asked showing Barney’s photo to my other room mates.

“Jesse?”, Gregory asked.

“Jesse James”, Ancil said. Ancil looked over at Calvin and then back at the photo. “Holy Crap, they brought him here on purpose!”.

“Wait”, Calvin said trying to keep up. “This isn’t Jesse James. This is my great, great, great, grandchild Barney James and I was told he’s in hiding and I just wanted to know if you guys would know how I can find him”.

“Yeah, I bet”, Gregory said. “Now because of you, we’re all going to die”.

“What are you talking about?”, Calvin asked.

“Look, you better sit down and we’ll educate you as quickly as we can”, Nathan said. “Your relative is the only living relative in 2115 because he not only removed his Equalizer, but he’s modified it to do things that scares even the military. Aun Swan didn’t send you here so you could start your life over. You’re here so she can use you as bait for Jesse James.”