Arnesto Modesto Read online

  Arnesto Modesto

  The World’s Most Ineffectual Time Traveler

  by Darren Johnson

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Copyright © by Darren Johnson, 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means whatsoever without express written permission from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. Please refer all pertinent questions to the publisher.

  Contents

  Prologue: The Original Future

  Familiarities

  Outed

  Spoiler Alert

  Intervention

  Connections

  Appeal to Pity

  Words Hurt

  Foul Play

  Learning Shortcuts

  Freedom of Assembly

  Served

  Cutting Ties

  A City Erupts

  Compounding the Problem

  Piling It On

  The Chase

  Road Rage

  Shady Neighbors

  Unexpected Company

  Too Much Power

  Safety in Numbers

  Barge Right In

  Tragedy Hits Home

  Collections

  The Power of Persuasion

  Ill-Conceived

  Shaking Masses

  First Impressions

  Renter’s Market

  Shocking

  Operation Panic

  By Design

  Making Waves

  Bad Parking

  Storming In

  Traumatizing

  Roach Trap

  Double Down

  Picture It

  Chilling

  The Keys to Success

  Fire It Up

  Pattern of Abuse

  The Wrong Date

  Breathless

  On the Run

  Building Violation

  Mementos

  Alliances

  A Relaxing Conversation

  Schooled

  Sinus Trouble

  Concessions

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Other Works by the Author

  The Part Where the Author Begs You for a Review

  Contact

  In memory of those who will be lost.

  Again.

  Prologue:

  The Original Future

  “Why must time travel kill you, Grandpa?”

  Arnesto Modesto looked at little Jessenia and smiled. She wasn’t his granddaughter but his great-great-great-great-granddaughter. Over the last century, medicine had seen countless improvements in staving off death so people were living longer than ever before. As the number of surviving generations increased, many families adopted the tradition of calling all their elders “Grandma” and “Grandpa.”

  “Because the nanobots have to destroy my memory cells to best extract the information before they create the impulses to send back along the curve of space-time via quantum embroilment,” he said. She looked confused so he reiterated, “It’s to give my brain in the past the best chance of accepting memories from my brain in the present.” He tapped his frail finger against the side of his liver-spotted head for emphasis.

  He overheard one of the young mothers in the room whispering to her little boy, “He’s preparing to go to heaven.”

  “No, I’m not!” he snapped.

  A few of the bystanders gasped at his sudden outburst before the room fell silent.

  “There’s no such thing as heaven or hell. Can’t a man choose to die in peace without any religious dogma ruining the moment?”

  The boy looked like he was about to cry. So did the boy’s mother. Arnesto felt bad. Must remember to be less condescending in my next life, he thought.

  He looked over at the 2130 calendar hanging on the wall. He had it special made as nobody used print calendars anymore.

  The top pages of the calendar featured classic cars from the 2060s: self-driving, self-recharging, eco-friendly, and impossibly safe. They were a far cry from the cars Arnesto drove in his day. He realized he was probably the only one alive in his family who had ever driven a car. Heck, the Department of Motor Vehicles closed down decades ago.

  The bottom page showed April with that day’s date circled. He loved that circle. His day had come at last. Less exciting were the marks filling every day before. The nurse put another mark inside that day’s circle then looked at Arnesto with a mild sneer. It was part of their arrangement that she would mark the calendar every time he was snarky to someone.

  From his deathbed, he looked around the room. Besides the nurse and Arnesto’s assistant, Marcus, everyone was somehow related to him. Descendants, descendants-in-law, cousins a number of times removed, cousins he wouldn’t mind seeing removed. They were all awkwardly looking at him. Even though it was his big day, he never got used to being the center of attention. He made an attempt at some damage control.

  “I mean, we all have our own ways of coping with death. Besides, I’m not going anywhere except to the past, where I will get to live my life all over again. Does anyone have any questions?” he asked.

  “If the impulses go back in time, couldn’t they recreate your memories in a dinosaur?” Jessenia asked. Several people chuckled, easing the tension in the room.

  “A great question! Who read and understood my research and wants to answer that?” The adults looked around the room at one another, but nobody volunteered. Idiots.

  Arnesto had no choice but to answer for them. “I’m kind of oversimplifying things, but the impulses are grounded in my brain. That means I’m the only one who can receive them. But if one of them escapes and lands in a dinosaur’s puny brain, the impulse would be incompatible. The energy would simply float away. Anyone else?”

  A middle-aged man spoke up. “Would you like us to pray for you?”

  Arnesto glared at the man. “You listen—”

  “Arnesto, your blood pressure,” Nurse Pearl said, placing her hand on his frail arm and nodding to the marked up calendar.

  “Who cares, I’m about to frigging die anyway!”

  “It might affect the experiment.” She was good. She knew how to handle him. He looked over at his assistant, Marcus, who shrugged. The experiment was unique, built upon layer after layer of wild conjecture. Both memory extraction and quantum teleportation had their geneses early in the twenty-first century, but no one had ever attempted to marry the technologies like this.

  Arnesto centered himself, again looking around at his guests. “I think it’s time,” he said. He looked again at Marcus, who gave him a quick nod. He then turned back to the crowd.

  “I’d like to thank you all for coming. Despite my brilliance, I’ve made some mistakes, but seeing all of you here, I know I’ve done something right.” There were a great number of smiles, but Arnesto focused on the gaps between those present, picturing in his mind the many who weren’t. “I’ve had a great life, but now my time has come. It is my dying wish to make a final contribution to the world of science, and my experiment should do just that. At the same time, it will allow me to execute my Twenty-Ninth Amendment right to humanely terminate my life with dignity — as if I had any left.” A few chuckles. “A tiny percentage of the nanobots are there purely to observe. Marcus will be displaying the feed on one of the monitors on the wall there. I encourage you to watch and ask questions. However, those of you who are embarrassed, squeamish, or easily offended may
wish to look away or even leave the room. I guess that’s it. I wish you all the best. Goodbye.”

  Marcus handed him the specially marked vial, then Nurse Pearl assisted his shaky hand as he inserted it into the injector port leading directly to his bloodstream. It didn’t take long for the first nanobots to reach the blood-brain barrier and cut their way inside. In no time, they were tracing their way along the synapses to the memory center of the brain.

  Marcus selected the most interesting-looking view on the multi-cam display and made that the primary display on the viewing monitor. It was mostly the children who watched as a nanobot found an isolated memory cell and attached itself. There was a pause, then a bright flash filled the monitor. The camera nanobot had to reorient itself, but once it did, it panned over the area where the flash happened. A few people gasped. The memory cell was all but gone and in its place were a bunch of damaged nanobot parts.

  Jessenia looked at Marcus, who explained in a respectful, hushed tone, “It’s a violent reaction on a very tiny scale.”

  She then looked at Arnesto. “Does it hurt?”

  “Not at all,” Nurse Pearl reassured her. “We gave him some medicine to make him feel completely relaxed and pain-free.”

  Marcus considered mentioning the stimulation nanobots that had nothing to do with the experiment but were there solely to interact with the brain’s pleasure center, but thought better of it. He found a camera near a large cluster of cells and put that up on the viewing monitor. It took several seconds as many more reactor nanobots appeared and secured their positions. Another big flash. This time the camera nanobot remained far enough away to hold stable. There were more oohs and aahs as the aftermath of the orchestrated reaction revealed itself.

  The microexplosions were coming faster now. Marcus shifted his entire display to the viewing monitor. Like the end of a fireworks show, flashes appeared in many of the individual windows on the screen.

  The children delighted in the carnage of nanobot parts floating in the newly empty spaces. Arnesto had opted out of the decomposing variety. What was the point? He was going to die anyway. Might as well go for broke and use a sturdier compound. At least that way, he had reasoned, he didn’t have to worry about some nanobots crapping out before they could finish their job. Marcus wondered if Arnesto’s additional aim was to enhance the viewing pleasure of his audience.

  With Arnesto’s increasingly compromised blood-brain barrier, the hemorrhaging began to overwhelm him. Nurse Pearl watched as her patient’s brainwaves turned to flatlines on the small monitor by his bed. Through watery eyes, she noticed one of the men looking at her.

  “He’s gone,” she said to him in a whisper, though the room was so quiet, nearly everyone heard.

  There were hugs and tears and final goodbyes as people slowly filtered out of the room. Marcus clicked off the viewing monitor. The nanobots were all but gone, too, having completed their mission.

  “Did it work? Is he in the past?” Jessenia asked, lingering at the foot of her grandfather’s bed.

  Marcus crouched down to meet her at eye level. “Arnesto told me the experiment was so tricky, that even if it worked, there would be no way for us to know.” He glanced at Nurse Pearl who looked up as she pulled the sheet over Arnesto’s head. Marcus then looked back at Jessenia. “Your grandpa tried something that’s never been done before. If anybody could make it work, it was him.” Jessenia seemed to accept this answer and met her mom who was waiting for her in the doorway.

  “Do you think he did it? Is it possible?” Nurse Pearl asked when the girl left.

  Marcus looked at his monitor and saw a piece of destroyed nanobot float by in one of the windows. He shrugged, “If he did, the past had better watch out.”

  On the outskirts of Arnesto’s memory center, one last reactor bot found and attached to a memory. It extracted the information and unleashed an enormous localized burst of energy, and then the memory was gone.

  Familiarities

  Modesto Residence

  Massachusetts

  Late Twentieth Century

  The energy burst arrived as an impulse, which Arnesto’s brain interpreted and saved as a memory. The memory was of Arnesto at the DMV when he was twenty-eight. Not the most exciting memory, to be sure. However, it was a moot point. Arnesto would never have cause to recall this particular memory. Even if he could, even if he knew it existed, his young brain was too immature to handle it.

  Arnesto giggled as the toy racecar left the track and landed on the shag carpeting. It didn’t take much to entertain him. He was, after all, only four years old. His mother kept an eye on him as she prepared his snack of apple slices.

  “Are you excited to see the boats?” she asked. They were about to drive into Boston to see the tall ships arrive in celebration of the nation’s bicentennial.

  He nodded, unaware of both the significance of the event and the fact that he had just made history of his own. One couldn’t blame him; there was no trail of flames, no ball of lightning, no fanfare of any kind. Still, it was there — a remnant from the future, harmlessly locked away inside the mind of a preschooler. Young Arnesto was now leading the world in time travel by exactly one memory’s worth of brain cells. As if in celebration of the event over which he had no control or even knowledge, he ate his apple slices.

  At age five, Arnesto was relieved to hear his town included in the long list of school closings broadcast over the radio during the Blizzard of ‘78. He headed outside with his parents, where he climbed the enormous snowbank left behind by the snowplows working nonstop. He knew just where to jump to break through the thick layer on top of the three feet of powder covering the lawn. He knew because he remembered seeing his dad do exactly that on the 16mm projector they got out when family came to visit. Alas, he didn’t weigh enough and landed disappointed on top of the icy crust. His father had better luck, breaking through and now caught in snow up to his waist while his mother recorded it on camera. Just like he remembered.

  When he was seven, and it was down to him and his neighbor, Cathy Gross, in the first-grade spelling bee, he somehow knew she was going to misspell “brown” as “braun” right before she did. He didn’t give it another thought. He was too excited about winning to reflect on what happened. Excitement that faded when his prize, disguised as a sugar cookie, revealed itself to be a damn oatmeal cookie.

  He was ten when the family took a trip to Niagara Falls. Standing by the rail atop the American side, a bee appeared out of nowhere and stung Arnesto on his wrist, causing him to yelp in pain.

  “Ow! Again?!” he said. Nobody was sure why he said, “again.” Had he been stung recently? No one could recall. Later, they were in the car when Arnesto’s mother, Nancy, turned around from the front passenger seat to ask how he and his little brother Gerald were enjoying the trip, aside from the insect attack.

  “I saw the twins from soccer,” Arnesto said.

  “You did? Where?” Nancy asked.

  “Outside the Ripley’s Museum.” Confused, Nancy looked at her husband, Karl, then back at Arnesto.

  “We haven’t been there yet. We’re going there now,” she said.

  “Oh, right.” She was right, they hadn’t been there yet. He kept his eyes open as they arrived, parked, and headed into Ripley’s Believe It or Not! Museum. Arnesto was excited. After all, it had been his idea to go there. Though reluctant to go at first, his parents caved in and wound up also enjoying the oddities and exhibits.

  When they finished their tour and were pulling away in the car, Arnesto took one last look at the museum, where he saw the twins Karen and Katherine Mitchell and their parents walking up the sidewalk to the entrance.

  This was no big deal to Arnesto, who figured his earlier memory must have come from seeing them somewhere else in the area the day before and confused that with the museum somehow.

  Two years later the family was watching the opening ceremonies of the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles. “Oh, look, Karl, that man is fly
ing in on a jetpack! Do you think we’ll all have jetpacks soon?” Nancy asked.

  “I don’t know,” Karl shrugged.

  “No, they’re too expensive, impractical, and especially dangerous for everyday use,” Arnesto said.

  “Gee, way to kill my dreams,” Nancy laughed. “How do you know that?”

  “I must have learned it… sometime,” Arnesto said. Try as he might, he couldn’t recall when he had acquired this information. On the other hand, he felt confident his future would be disappointingly devoid of jetpacks.

  And so Arnesto would continue to have these rare, sporadic moments of foresight that he couldn’t explain. They were harmless, inconsequential, and quickly forgotten. They never appeared to affect anyone, least of all him.

  Until one did.

  Outed

  Sophomore Gym Class

  Monday, October 12, 1987

  B Period

  It was cold outside, especially for one standing around in a field waiting for someone else to hit a ball at them. For some reason, the coach decided they were going to play softball for gym class that day. He chose the field closest to the school where there weren’t any benches. This meant one team stood in the field waiting for anything to happen while the other team stood around home plate waiting for their chance at bat. It was a large class. When his team took the field, Arnesto saw that they already had six or seven outfielders, so he chose a spot partway between shortstop and the left fielders.

  As had been happening all period, there wasn’t a lot of action. There were many fine athletes at the school, however, few of them made it into the early morning sophomore gym class. Todd Shea happened to be one of the few present with any skill.

  After a wise choice not to swing at his first pitch which landed on the ground five feet in front of the plate, he was given a perfect second pitch. The crack of the bat turned a few heads as he connected with a long fly ball to left field where Jon Kelley snagged it on a bounce. Arnesto saw Jon start to pull his arm back and quickly turned to first base where Todd had no intention of stopping. Arnesto wasn’t particularly concerned with the play, as he knew Jon could easily throw the ball to second. He became concerned, though, when he heard Jon shout his name from behind him. In that split second, Arnesto started to turn his head to the right, but then flinched and moved it the other way as he brought his glove up to where his face had nearly been, blindly catching Jon’s throw.