Rebound
by
Phil Temples
“Housekeeping.”
Randy
Pratt announced his presence before entering. Most of the residents of the Centerwood Assisted
Living and Nursery Facility were gathered in the common room for arts and crafts. The room
was unoccupied, or so he thought. But then, he saw Billie Madison curled up in a corner
of the room reading the latest Super Dynamo vs.
Dark Phantasmo e-comic that Billie had received the day before.
“Oh, I’m sorry,
Billie. I didn’t know anyone was in here. I can come back later, if you’d like.”
“Naw, that’s
okay, Randy,” replied the five-year-old rebounder. I’m just killing time until
Johnny and Lizzy get back from crafts. You go ahead and do all that grownup stuff
that needs doing.”
“Okay,
kiddo.” Randy walked over and stripped the bunk beds of their sheets and tossed them
in the portable incinerator on his cart. They disappeared in a whoosh! Then
he pushed a button and four sets of sheets and pillows popped out. The newer carts were
equipped with robotic arms that installed the linen. But Randy was fine with the older
model. He enjoyed doing it by hand.
“How’s Lizzy doing, by the way? She still
hanging in there?”
Billie
looked sad. “Not so good, I’m afraid. She’s three now, and she’s beginning to
lose a lot of her vocabulary. Heck, so am I. Image that! Three doctorate degrees under
my belt, and I’m only interested in comic books now.” Billie paused to put
down his tablet. “I guess it’s only a matter of time before you’ll be
slappin’ diapers on me.”
Randy
chuckled. “Gawd, I hope not. I don’t want to get anywhere near your little
pecker. Besides, you still got a few good years left in you.”
Around
2047 the world’s elderly population started to experience sudden age reversal.
People around sixty-five began appearing younger. Despite intense investigations
by the world's leading medical schools as to why seniors no longer assumed the typical
signs of decline but instead grew youthful over a relatively short span of time, no definitive
cause had ever been found. Some scientists speculated that the answer to this vexing question
might exist in the reactivation of telomerase, the enzyme that lengthens telomeres––prompting
gene reproduction. While this dramatic change in the human condition pleased
most elders, it upset their descendants, who witnessed their parents—and
grandparents—“rebounding” past them in chronological age and maturity.
“Randy, can I ask
you a question?”
“Sure.”
“Are you still linear?”
“Yep. Guilty as charged.
Is it that obvious?”
“Well,
I figured as much. If you were on the rebound, you wouldn’t be taking care of little
kids. You’d be out doing fun stuff instead. I tell ya’, enjoy it while you
can. It sucks to get young.”
“I’ll
keep that in mind, Billie. I surely will. You take care. Be nice to the others, and share
your toys. I’ll be back the day after tomorrow.”
Randy finished his duties on the second floor, and headed
for the infant’s ward on level eight. He was responding to the dispensary, which
had messaged him saying it needed more diapers.
As Randy passed by one of the doors, the
sensor detected his proximity and flashed on the screen the names of the room occupants.
One name caught his attention immediately:
PHILIP R. PRATT, AGE 1.25 YRS
Could it be…?
Randy
had a stepfather—a rebounder—who would be around one or two years of age now.
The two had been estranged for decades. Randy touched the sensor and then pressed query.
Up flashed more vital statistics about Philip Pratt.
Is it really you, you son of a bitch?
Philip had been an evil stepfather. He was fifty-six years Randy’s
senior. When Randy was a child, Philip delighted in playing cruel pranks on him. Like the
time he threw rocks at Mrs. Madison’s tabby cat, and then he told her that Randy
was the culprit. Randy’s mother punished him for weeks by making him scrub the
floors, clean the dishes, and perform other intensive labor meant for the
cleanbots. Philip even got Randy arrested once when he bullied his stepson into
entering a bodega to say, “This is a stick up. Give me your money.”
Above
all, Philip was a sadistic sociopath who delighted in smacking the youngster
around simply for the pleasure of seeing him suffer. It wasn’t until the elder Philip
divorced Randy’s mother and moved out of state that Randy escaped his cruel treatment.
Randy severed all contact with Philip, and they lived their separate lives. Once or twice
over the years, Philip had tried reaching out to Randy, but Randy never reciprocated. The
two hadn’t spoken since.
Randy walked into the room. There was no need to knock.
The occupants were infants, all assigned to cradles. Randy spied the cradle occupied by
his stepfather. He bent over and put his face inches from the baby’s.
“It’s been a
long time, hasn’t it, Philip? Do you know who I am?”
The baby had been staring
off into space. But when Randy bent over the cradle, Philip stared up at him. The infant
was transfixed.
“Yes,
it’s me. Randy. You remember, right? You remember how you used to knock me
down, and kick me? You broke my ribs, once. Then you told mom that I had fallen
down the basement stairs. You threatened to kill mom if I told her the truth.
Remember?”
The
baby Philip continued to stare at the figure above him. The words Philip heard
meant almost nothing to the nearly preverbal infant. Yet, they stirred
vague recollections. Feelings. Feelings of hunger. Or concern. No, perhaps… delight?
“Do you remember
when you trapped me in the bathroom and pulled down my pants? Do you remember how you raped
me? I’m sure you do. That’s something even a slobbering infant wouldn’t
forget, right? I know you remember! I can see it in your eyes.”
Indeed, Philip’s eyes
betrayed him. The scene was registering in
the infant’s mind. It was ancient and powerful and …
Something dark moved across
Philip’s face. Suddenly he was aware of pressure against his throat. Philip’s
instincts told him to both cry out and suck in air at the same time. Neither was possible,
however, as the grown man’s hand seized the infant’s throat in a viselike grip.
Philip struggled, to no avail.
Randy squeezed more tightly. Seconds later, Philip’s
vision grew blurry. Soon he stopped struggling and surrendered to the impending darkness.
Randy, knowing the sophisticated electronics in the building would soon identify him
as the assailant, abandoned his cart, headed down the elevator, and walked
calmly out the building into the bright morning sun.
Justice
had been meted out by Randy’s hands in a most satisfying fashion. It mattered
little to Randy what happened to him now.
Phillip Temples resides in Watertown,
Massachusetts. He's had five mystery-thriller novels,
a novella, and two story anthologies published in addition to over 180 short stories online
in: The London Independent Story Prize; Wilderness House Literary Review;
Boston Literary Magazine; and Ariel Chart to name but a few. Phil
is a member of New England Science Fiction Association, the Mystery Writers of America,
and the Bagel Bards. You can learn more about him at https://temples.com.