Chapter 3

When Kevin awoke the amount of information at his fingertips was almost painful. He had memories of learning almost everything twice and also of his body learning things he had never known before. Strangely enough he now knew that this body was named Kevin also. He had figured that it would have had a different name but now that he thought about it, he remembered that the nurse had called him Kevin before she had given him his shot. He thought it was strange how he hadn't recognized it. He shrugged it off, however, and concentrated his mind on the task at hand, that task being meeting his 'new' parents, who were standing over his bed looking down on him with pleasant smiles, for the first time. He returned the smile and affectionately reached out to take his mother's hand.

"Hi mom, I'm back," he said giving here hand a squeeze to let her know that he was indeed back.

"Oh Kevin. I'm so glad you made it. We were so worried when you had your accident. But don't you worry now. The doctor said you were perfectly healthy and after he runs one last test we can take you home. In fact Holly is waiting for you there."

Holly was Kevin's sister, well his new bodies sister. Kevin knew she was a beautiful girl who was two years younger than him and would be a freshman in high school this coming year. He had many memories of having to defend her from guys who had chosen the wrong way to get her attention.

"Yes son, we have the whole house decorated for your return and we even went out and got you a present. Something you've been wanting for a while." Kevin smiled at his dad while in his mind wondering what this surprise would be.

"Aw thanks dad, I can't wait to get home to check it out and also to be out of this place. It's so dull. The beds more then make up for it though. I seem to be able to sink into them forever." Their conversation was interrupted, however, when the doctor arrived to complete his tests.

"Kevin, I see you are doing well and hope the treatment worked," the doctor said to Kevin.

"Yes sir, it worked perfectly and I'm feeling much better after another nights rest. Thank you very much and I'm very sorry for scaring you with my mindless ramblings," Kevin replied waving his hand in the air as if to blow it off as some random slip of the lip.

"It's nothing Kevin. Many patients suffer damaged memories and often end up saying some very strange things. Now lets get this last test done and you can check out." He pressed the instrument he had brought against Kevin's hip and he once again felt an electrical current run through his body. The doctor studied it for a moment before smiling up at Kevin.

"Well it looks like you are in perfect health now. It was a pleasure helping you out young sir. I'll send a nurse in now to help you out. Good day Mr. And Mrs. Sanders."

With that the doctor left the room and a moment later a nurse came in. The nurse was a nice young lady and soon had Kevin out of his bed and in some plain white clothes. It wasn't ten minutes later that Kevin was walking out of the hospital door into a world that looked like it had come straight out of a science fiction movie. He forced himself to keep walking next to his parents and not gap at all the incredible things around him. To start things off, the hospital turned out to be nearly a hundred stories tall and had what looked like train tracks running into it on several different floors. Kevin and his parents were currently standing on the 32^nd floor on a platform that jutted out from the side of the building and connected to what looked like a freeway that was nearly ten stories above the street floor. The street floor itself could be seen far below them crowded with cars of a type that Kevin had never seen. He remembered cars from movies like Minority Report, Star Trek, and The Island but the cars here and now made those look old. Even more astonishment then the skyscrapers that stretched up for thousands of feet all around was the loud noise of millions of engines all running at once. The sound of the cars on the freeway combined with the sound of the subwayish cars running over their elevated tracks at neck braking speeds. Over all this he could hear the sound of jets flying overhead. The whole place reminded him of Gothan City from Batman Begins. He was immediately drawn to the holograms projecting from the building sided that displayed some ad in such detail that the actors could have actually been up there playing the part and you wouldn't have been able to tell the difference.

Kevin was astonished at the car that his parents finally stopped in front off. It reminded him of an old Cadillac except in was heavily decked out in chrome and had taken on a futuristic look with curving ends and sharp points that seemed to slice through the air. The inside was fantastic. It seemed to be twice as big as it had looked from the outside and Kevin realized this was because of the lack of a steering wheel. Instead, there was a panel that, when Mr. Sanders turned the car on, lit up and displayed a detailed map of the city and where their destination was. It was even voice activated and all Kevin's dad had to do was ask the computer to inlay a course to their residence and the car automatically drove there. It drove itself so well that Kevin's parents were able to turn their seats around to look at him (he had chosen to sit in the back) and discuss how his stay at the hospital had been. Kevin answered all their questions but chose to leave out the nanobots.

The highway was an interesting place and only similar to Kevin's past memories in that it was packed with cars that went very fast. Other than that it was entirely different. First of all it was nearly twelve lines wide and the sides were steel walls that rose about fifteen feet into the air blocking all vision to the sides. The highway curves and straightened just like normal ones but it also went upside down and straight up buildings at points. Kevin figured the cars must have built in inertia-dampening fields because he never felt a thing whenever the car did one of these tricks. Now that he was thinking about it Kevin had no idea what an inertia-dampening field was just that it cause the effects of gravity to not be present in some ways. He figured it was just another on his bodies memories and he wondered how many interesting facts his body knew.

After a good twenty minutes the Sanders finally pulled off the highway and began to travel on the streets. The streets were something that Kevin was finally able recognized. From his memories Kevin knew that this was futuristic Los Angeles and the ground streets were something that he finally recognized. He wondered what the Staples Center looked like and got a picture of a spherical shaped building resting on a trophy stand that had many tram tracks connecting to it all over. He figured he'd have to look into what basketball was like nowadays as well as water polo; for those were to two sports he had enjoyed playing in his old life. Out of curiosity he wondered what they called the portable computer nowadays. The word lComp (yes that's an L) popped into his head and he laughed to himself as he realized Microsoft and Macintosh must have lost to Linux in the long run. He had always been a Linux fan and had gone as far as to illegally install Linux on his X-box. That had been a fun experience and he had enjoyed many hours of hacking different servers using his new tool.

"Um mom? You didn't happen to bring your lComp with you did you?" he asked hoping she would.

"Well of course, hunny, I never leave home without it. Would you like to use it right now?" she asked already reaching into her bag to get it.

"Yes please, " he answered taking it from her hand.

"Since when did you ever start being pleasant Kevin?" she asked. At that point Kevin realized he must not have been acting much like his old self and quickly came up with some bullshit to make up for it.

"Um well you know I had a little scrape with death. I guess I just happen to appreciate life a little more now and how much some people are willing to help others," he said, giving her a quick smile while booting up the lComp. This answer seemed to satisfy her and she turned back to her husband and they continued their conversation. The lComp was an interesting device. It was about as big as a clipboard and only slightly thicker but definitely much heavier. The metal alloy was cool to the touch and Kevin was immediately able to identify it as something only recently discovered. It took the computer only several seconds to start up and soon Kevin was looking at a blank desktop. The display in the corner said it was 1:32 pm August 23 2051. Well know I know what the date is. Even thought he had never seen one of these devices before he immediately knew how to use it from the memories of his body's life. He pulled a little magnet in the upper left corner across the lComp's surface to the bottom right side to display a menu. He touched the icon labeled Internet and was surprised to see the Google web page pop up. Well I guess some things don't change.