Chapter 4

Author’s note:[ and ] delineate mind-to-mind dialog.

Replicator created a second replicator to leave with Sam. That would make it easy to keep a close eye on him without the necessity of Replicator or me staying where I could see him.

Sam’s wife Helen showed up in only a few minutes and wanted to rush to him. I grabbed her as she was about to barge into Sam’s room. I said, “Please, Mrs. Horton, let me take care of Sam. He will die if you do not do as I say. I can save him, but everybody has to do exactly as I say.”

That was when Susan interrupted with, “Mr. Jeff can do wonderful magic. Please do not mess it up. Oops, there I go again.” She started to cry and ran to her room.

I said to Helen, “Susan is partly correct. I can do things that no one else in this time can do. Please be patient until after supper and you will hear everything.” Helen gave me a soulful expression and suddenly began to cry. Sarah took her into the kitchen for a little privacy and a cup of coffee.

Meanwhile, Replicator was busy working on Sam. The first thing he was doing was clearing all of the crud from the wound and the track that the bullet followed after it entered Sam’s body. Fortunately, the bullet missed a lot of the vital organs and the damage turned out to be less than it first appeared.

Once the crud was completely removed, Replicator was going to put Sam back together with what amounted to a medical version of super glue. When that was done, it was just a matter of Sam’s tissues growing back together to seal the holes and tears. Replicator predicted that he would be in perfect shape in two to three weeks.

Supper was very somber, and even Susan was suppressed. When everybody had finished eating, James said, “Okay, Jeff, you promised us an explanation of what you are and what you can do. Please go ahead.”

“First of all, let me say that everything that Susan has been saying is absolutely true, even the hints at magic. The first thing that you must understand is that I am only a visitor to this time period. I was born in 2049 AD in a land that is very different from what you are living in, even though it is still called The United States of America. There are 52 states stretching from Maine to Hawaii and from Alaska to Florida. If you want to know more, I will tell you about that later.

“In 2027 AD, some aliens from another star showed up and gave every person on Earth a device called a replicator. This device could make everything that a sane person could want, and that quickly destroyed every economic system on Earth. We only found out later that the destruction of civilization was the reason for their visit. They wanted everybody on Earth to die off so that they could have it. They came close to succeeding, but they were defeated by one person, a 15 year old boy who found a chink in their armor.

“We had a difficult time getting back together, but things were looking up when I left. There are no more wars, starvation, or slavery, mostly because of the replicators. The reason that I can do a lot of the things I do is because I have my replicator with me. That is something else that we can talk about later.

“The point right now is that the replicator literally knows everything there is to know about medicine. It also has devices that can speed up healing to a miraculous rate. For example, Sam has a wound that would kill a person in this time period in one to three weeks. However, with what the replicator can do, Sam should be completely cured in two to three weeks. I am betting on the two weeks because Sam is in such great general physical condition.

“Right now, Sam needs to be left alone so that the replicator can work uninterrupted on taking care of him. Once that phase is over, it will be up to all of us to keep him from dying of boredom as he lies on his bed. Sarah, you do not need to worry about feeding him because the replicator can feed him everything he needs exactly where he needs it without going through his normal digestive system. That is important because the bullet did some damage to his intestines and stomach.

“Here, let me show you what I mean about the replicator making food. Replicator, please make enough strawberry shortcake desserts for everybody to have one.” A blue sphere appeared on the table in front of each person, including me, and a dish of strawberry shortcake appeared, along with a spoon to eat it with. “Dig in, everybody, or Susan and I will have ours finished before you get started. That white stiff is vanilla ice cream. It is wonderful stuff, but kind of cold, and it may surprise you at first.

“One last thing, and then I will try to answer questions. All of you probably have something medically wrong with you that needs fixing. As soon as Sam is on the road to recovery, I offer to all of you the opportunity to have the replicator examine you to see what it can do to help you feel better and live longer. As an example, it has already cured Julia and Susan of a case of hookworms. You may all be carrying them, and a hookworm infection can kill you. Please take advantage of this opportunity.

“Oh, please do not tell anyone about me. If you do, I will be hounded by everybody wanting to be made rich or cured of something or to be made prettier or I do not know what, so I am asking you to consider how much pain and aggravation that you will cause me if word gets out about me.”

The room seemed to be cloaked in a stunned silence. Even Susan had nothing to say. After about 30 seconds of silence, Susan said, “Mr. Jeff, that sure was a good dessert. May I have some more?”

Julia beat me to it. “No, you cannot have any more of the dessert.” That was enough to break everybody loose with laughter. Moments later, the questions seemed to pour down upon my head. I held up my hands. When the number of questions finally petered out, I said, “Let us do it this way. We will go around the table with each person asking one question. If there are still some questions outstanding, we can repeat the process. I suspect that most of your have the same questions.” I pointed at James. “You start, and we will go around the table clockwise.”

“What is it like to have anything that you want?”

“That is an easy and a hard question at the same time. By having anything they wanted, most people loaded up on stuff that they had heard about and were curious over. However, once they had that item, they were quickly bored and went on to something else. I think the answer to the question is like being buried in total boredom. If you do not have to work for something, then why bother?”

All of the other questions were about things that would happen in the near future. My answer was that I did not have that information, so I could not even guess at what might happen. That pretty well killed the questions, and I pled that I needed to check up on Sam.

I went into the room with Sam and found him still unconscious. [Replicator, is he unconscious because of something you did, or is it just because he needs the rest?]

[I have finished the repair work that I needed to do, but he would still be in considerable pain if he were conscious. Therefore, I am keeping him unconscious to miss all of that unnecessary pain. I predict that he will wake up tomorrow with some pain, but not enough to require medication or my intervention. Two more days after that, he should be allowed to sit up in bed. I will monitor him closely and let you know when he can leave the bed.

[You can let Helen in to see her husband right now if you think that she needs that, but warn her not to disturb him in any way. Specifically, she must not touch him until he wakes up, but she cannot try to wake him up. At his stage, that might actually kill him.]

[Okay, I’ll tell her that. I think that it would help her a lot if she could see that he is still alive.]

I spoke to Helen, and yes, she definitely wanted to see Sam. She promised to abide by the conditions I relayed to her, so I brought her into the bedroom. She looked at Sam for a few minutes before rushing out of the room. Once she was back in the hall with the door closed, she began to cry. Sarah rushed to comfort her, so I did not interfere.

The next morning, I was sitting one the front veranda talking to Julie when a boy rode into the yard. He was a courier from Henry Thompson, mayor of Clear Wells. The message was from Thompson asking me to drop in his saloon this afternoon to discuss a matter very important to the town of Clear Wells. I told the boy that I would be there, but I was not sure of the time. The boy left, and I saw that it was time to look in on Sam again.