"Brother, Can You Take Me Back?"

Remember what is was like being a teenager? - You will!

-1-

"What is the logical value of this q-bit here?" Ms Trisconi demanded, pointing at the magiscreen. She seemed to be getting quite worked up over the matter. It sounded to Daniel like he ought to know – that it was obvious – from something Ms Trisconi had said in the last five minutes. The trouble was – Daniel had not been listening for the last five minutes.

"Erm… True?" he hazarded.

Ms Trisconi glared at him. "Daniel, do you want me to refer you for Realignment Programming?"

"No, miss."

"So – I ask again, if the input q-bits to a ZOR gate are a True and a False, what is the logical value of the output q-bit?" She really meant it this time.

"I don’t know," he answered, honestly. He really meant that too.

"Anyone?" she addressed the rest of the class, mock-weary.

"True-and-false," the class all chorused, like reciting a mantra.

"Now, Daniel, why didn’t you know that?" Ms Trisconi said.

Daniel searched the air itself around him. He glanced at his transputer screen, looked across his desktop and searched, wide-eyed with growing despair, the faces all staring at him. Perhaps he had a chance to redeem himself with one last throw of the dice. "Because it’s all bollocks, miss?"

-2-

Daniel was wandering disconsolately down the blue atrium, with no particular place to go, when he spotted Claire. Claire was just about his best friend. Indeed, she was about his only friend – for some reason he just couldn’t seem to get on with the other kids. Claire, however, seemed to understand him. A little. At least, she was prepared to listen to him. Usually. He approached her. She spoke first, before he had time to say hello.

"You idiot! Do you really want to go to Alignment classes?" she snapped. Perhaps she was not so understanding after all.

"I suppose not."

"Then why do you say such daft things in lessons? Trisconi’s bound to report you now!"

"What did I say that was daft?"

"Everyone knows the output of a ZOR gate is true-and-false. It’s like, d’ur, the most basic thing in quantum transputing. And using language like that too. You’ll get an F for respect in Civics as well now."

"But it is bollocks," Daniel insisted. "How can anything be true and false at the same time?"

"That’s the whole point of quantum transputing – it’s all based on a superposition of entangled possibilities before the collapse of the probability density function! Like Shrödinger’s Cat."

"Claire," Daniel spoke cautiously, "where did you learn to speak English?"

She glowered at him. "Do you know, at this rate, by the time you graduate from school, you’ll be a hundred years old?"

Daniel hesitated. Claire was his best friend. Perhaps now it was time to tell her his biggest secret. No matter what the consequences.

"Claire – listen. I’ve got something very important to tell you."

She shrugged, turning partly away from him, and didn’t speak.

"Claire… I already am over a hundred years old."

For a moment, she still said nothing. Then she spun back on him. "Daniel," she yelled, "you’re impossible!" and stormed off.

-3-

It was after Environics that he caught up with her again. She was in the panodome but, unusually for her, she didn’t have her head in a screen, but was staring out through the thermoglass into the distance, arms folded.

He walked up behind her and said, quietly, "I accept you for what you are ."

"What do you mean, ‘accept me’? For what?"

"Well… for having purple hair for a start."

"What’s wrong with purple hair? It’s not dyed – it’s natural, you know."

"That’s what so scary," he murmured.

"What?"

"And you’re a girl."

"Of course I’m a girl, you – " she ran out of words. "Is this about us having sex again?"

"We didn’t have sex before," he quibbled.

"We talked about having sex before. We decided it would be a bad idea at our age. And with wrist-pods," she raised her hand to show the electronic device strapped to her arm, "we’d soon be spotted together and get in trouble, and we’d both fail our Responsibility exam."

"That’s what I meant," he winked. "We talked about it before, but we haven’t had it before."

Despite herself, Claire couldn’t keep a grin playing around the corners of her mouth. Of all the people she knew, he was the only one who could make fun of serious matters like this. And he was the only one who made her laugh about them.

"What’s wrong with being a girl, anyway?" she pouted.

"Nothing. It’s very nice, in fact. It’s just that – when I first went to school, it was a boys-only school."

"When was that?" she mocked. "In the middle of the twentieth century?"

"Exactly!" he hissed. "I first went to secondary school in 1966."

The smile faded from Claire’s face, replaced by a look of concern. "Why don’t you speak to Ms Grubczak, in S.E? Maybe she could help you."

"I don’t need advice from Ms Grubczak or Spiritual Enlightenment or anything else. I just need to confide in a friend. My best friend. Even if my best friend does have tits."

"Daniel!" Claire could snarl like a rottweiler when she chose to.

"I’m sorry. It’s just that when I was a teenager, I never knew any girls."

"Daniel, you’re a teenager now."

"Alright – when’s my birthday?"

"I dunno – sometime around the summer solstice."

"What year?"

"2055 – same as mine. We’re both fifteen years old."

"Claire – I was born in 1955."

She studied his face. "Maybe you should get your hormones checked at MedLab."

"I’m absolutely serious, Claire. This is the second time I’ve been through adolescence in my life. And I’m absolutely hating it."

-4-

He caught up with her again outside, behind the bicycle sheds – it was funny how some things didn’t change about school even over a century. Even if, now, the bikes all had hydrogen cells. They both were wearing shades, to protect their eyes from the UV, but it looked like a fashion statement. Claire was listening to pipe groove on her wrist pod. She was moving in time with the music, as if in a miniature dance, and the volume was so loud he could hear it coming out of her nose. He tapped her on the shoulder.

"That stuff will rot your brain."

She removed her earplugs. "It’s top – don’t tell me you don’t like pipe."

"It’s sodding bag-pipe and drums like they used to play at the Edinburgh Tattoo, speeded up and played on synthesisers!" he snorted.

"What’s a bag-pipe?"

"What you were – almost – listening to now. They were played by Scots men in kilts and annoyed everybody because it sounds like someone strangling a cat!"

"Get up to date, will you? You’re beginning to sound like my parents."

"I’m old enough to be your great, great grand parent."

"And where do you get off on that rubbish? ‘I’ve been here before’ and all that crap?"

"It’s not crap. It’s the truth. I went to a school with no girls in a building that was made of brick with windows so high up the wall you couldn’t see out, not this – " he gestured to the gleaming building behind him " – thing that looks like someone threw up a pile of goldfish bowls. And we had uniforms and we had proper subjects like chemistry and history and maths – not Personal Development and Civic Responsibility and Quantum Transputing and – what’s that other thing? – Spiritual Enlightenment, whatever that is."

"And I suppose you didn’t wear sun-screen and drove around in petrol cars too!" she snapped.

"No," he shook his head slowly. "Not the cars. You couldn’t learn to drive till you were eighteen."

"So how did you end up here in year ten of Ganesh College?"

He sat down on a low wall and waited patiently for her to join him. Eventually, she gave in and took her place by his side. "You didn’t meet me to the beginning of this academic year?"

"No."

"That’s because they didn’t let me loose till this summer."

"Who? Who didn’t?"

"I had a whole life before this one. In the middle of my nineties in 2050, I fell ill. The doctors told me that they were developing a treatment for what I had, but it wasn’t quite ready. They offered to put me in suspended animation and when the treatment was perfect they would fix me and bring me round. I mean, I didn’t know what they had in mind – I was an old get who’d long since lost interest in scientific developments in the world, and, to tell the truth, the world in general. I was what some call, ‘waiting for God.’ My life seemed almost over. However, have you heard the saying, ‘Everyone wants to go to heaven but nobody wants to die?"

"I – I’m not sure. I might have in S.E."

"Well, I thought, ‘What the hell,’ and said, ‘OK.’ It was stupid really – all my friends had gone, all my close relatives had died and I didn’t see even my kids or grand-kids any more. To be honest, I didn’t think it would work. I’d just quietly go to sleep in comfort and that would be that."

"What was the treatment?"

"It was called stem-cell technology or something at the time. I suppose it’s what you call bio-regenics today."

Claire was taking this seriously. She tugged absent-mindedly on her wrist-pod. "What happened?"

"Well – apparently – they eventually got it to work. They brought me round, finally. But it was ten years later. And they’d not simply cured my illness, they had re-grown my muscle, skin and bone. I was a centenarian in an infant’s body."

"Ozone holes!" said Claire. Beyond that, she had no other comment.

"So after that I went through a period of rehabilitation and readjustment – there was no need for me to got to school to learn to read and write and I didn’t have to be potty trained. Walking was a bit odd at first. Ultimately, they got me to a state where they felt I could be reintegrated back into society. I was a teenager by then. So here I am at school. I’m learning all these stupid subjects that didn’t exist when I really was a teenager all those years ago, I don’t understand any of it, I’m not interested in any of it and everybody is giving me a hard time, especially that Trisconi woman. She just keeps getting on my back every day and I’m sick of it. All the stuff I know is useless and all the stuff they’re trying to cram in my head just gets on my bloody nerves."

Claire absorbed this. "What was it like, life back then? In the nineteen hundreds?"

"Nothing special. Or, that’s how I felt at the time. By comparison, it seemed a lot more sensible than life today."

"I’ve often wondered about back then. I mean I’ve read about it and see it in videos. I sometimes think I might have liked it."

Daniel was dubious, then something occurred to him. "Maybe that’s why you and I sort of get on together."

"What did you do for a living?"

"I was a computer programmer until I retired. Then I took up growing roses in my back garden."

"But you don’t programme transputers. You just specify the problem in assertive terminology and the solution-algorithm is self-generating."

"Well-remembered! It’s almost like you’re brainwashed. Meanwhile, the one thing I was good at and earned a comfortable living from isn’t even a job anymore and I’m supposed to learn a new career. As if I could care less. And I’m supposed to like bloody bag-pipe music too!" Daniel was clenching his fists in rage by now.

"Daniel," said Claire at length. "What’s a rose?"

-5-

They were walking along beneath the overpass near the Interchange, the quiet hum of vehicles above filling the gaps in their conversation. At length Daniel asked, "Won’t they notice we’re missing Recreational Studies?"

Claire thumbed at her wrist-pod. "With a bit of luck, the overpass will mess up our pod signals and we’ll just tell them we missed the Shuttle back from the Mall."

"That’s just what I used to say when I used to bunk off Latin. Sort of." He looked at her. "Before you ask, Latin was the language everybody spoke before English took over, but about two thousand years earlier. Alright?"

Claire mouthed the word, "Oh," in ill-feigned interest.

"But you do really know what a rose is, don’t you?"

"Of course I do," she said. "I was just testing you to see if you did."

"Ah. I see."

"I’ve seen one in the museum. I’m still not sure what a kilt is, though."

They were running short of anywhere interesting to walk. There was a service gantry with a metal stairway that rose to a dizzying height. Few people passed by here. Opening a gate, they climbed to a platform, sat and looked out on a deserted urban tableau.

"Why are you testing me?" Daniel said. "Don’t you believe me?"

"That you’re a hundred and fifteen years old. Of course I believe you."

"Thank you," he said.

"It’s just that you don’t look a day over a hundred and ten."

"Look!" he said, seriously, on the edge of losing his temper. "I’m like that Shrödinger’s Cat. I’m in a superposition of states – I’m fifteen and I’m one hundred and fifteen!"

Claire looked suitably chastened. "What about your parents – the people you live with?"

"The foster parents, you mean?"

"You’re a hundred and fifteen and have foster parents?"

"No – the parents I live with are called Mr and Mrs Foster – they have other children… What do you think I mean! I have to appear to be an ordinary teenager. And that’s just how they treat me – always on at me to work hard at college, grounding me if I stay out late and being a real pain in the backside."

"Why?"

"So that I won’t stand out and because I’m supposed to need looking after – this is an entirely different world from the one I knew. What’s more – " he broke off.

"What?"

"I’m not supposed to tell anyone. The treatment I had is still experimental. You don’t even qualify for it unless you reach a hundred."

"What – like a prize?"

"Some prize! Anyway, if anyone finds out, it could be… rescinded."

"Rescinded?"

"Revoked." He could see her staring at him, uncomprehending. "I think it means they’d take me and chuck me back in the freezer if I blab. What’s more, you could be in danger too."

"Why would I be in danger?"

"Because if you told some old folk they could have a second life, they’d all want one!" Daniel was exasperated. "I don’t know – all I know is it’s supposed to be a secret and I’m sworn to silence. The old folk wouldn’t be so keen if they remembered what it was like to be a teenager, having grown-ups always telling you what to do and asking you ‘what about your future?’ and crap like that. And now I’ve gone and told you because you’re the only person I really trust. And you’re probably the one person I shouldn’t have told because you could get into trouble!"

"I can take care of myself."

"Oh, yeah, tough-girl. And what if they turn you into a Popsicle too?"

"Let them try," she said, defiantly. "Creeps."

He grabbed her by the shoulders. "Look, I don’t want anything happening to you, because I care about you."

"I know. I care about you," she shrugged.

"No – I mean, really care. Y’know?…"

"You mean?…."

He nodded, slowly. "Yeah," he said, at last. "I have strong feelings for a fifteen year old school girl and I’m over one hundred years old."

She looked at him, surprised at first, then, coyly. "You dirty old man," she said, with a wink.

-6-

The Educhief’s private lounge, Ms Trisconi and Ms Grubczak faced Ms Ohuruogu, the chef du mission of Ganesh College.

"He’s rude, ignorant, and… dare I say?… discourteous even," Ms Trisconi was going on. "I’ve never met a student like him. He shows no interest in learning anything. He behaves like somebody from the Middle Ages!"

Ms Ohuruogu looked askance at Ms Trisconi. This was a day she had secretly been dreading. Before she could respond, Ms Grubczak interceded. "I think Daniel may have some deep spiritual issue he is struggling with. I have noticed him showing signs of distraction, as if something is preying on his mind. I have attempted to show empathy in compassion-sessions with him to seek out his inner conflicts…"

"Oh, shut up!" said Ms Trisconi, her voice, soggy with derision, betraying a slightly less enlightened attitude than was conventional.

"Colleagues, colleagues," said Ms Grubczak, "we need to try and find a way to move forward with Daniel. This groupthink has done nothing but focus on the past so far!"

"If we allow a student to realign his learning posture, it could spread to the other students."

"I think you’re overstating the situation," said Ms Ohuruogu, though she sounded less than convincing.

"Am I? Things like this have a contagion. And once it gets a hold, we could lose our educredit rating!"

"It is true," Grubczak nodded. "Disrupting the harmony of one insight period could spread to – "

"Will you stop talking like some reincarnated hippy!" Trisconi snapped.

"You’ve no idea what hippies were like, you post-post-post-modernist!" Grubczak retorted, with unusual venom.

"Colleagues, you are becoming heated!" said Ms Ohuruogu, heatedly. "There is more to this situation than meets the eye." She sighed heavily. "I didn’t want to have to tell you this. You are sworn to secrecy. Understand?"

The two education engineers exchanged glances, then nodded. "What is it?" said Grubczak.

"Is it something we really want to know?" said Trisconi.

"I’m afraid… it has become so." Ohuruogu pressed her thumb against the identity window of a filing carousel and extracted a piece of gutenberg. The sheet glowed with Daniel’s college report. She invited the two education engineers to see.

"There’s nothing odd there," said Trisconi, still reading Daniel’s record details. "He turned up here last solstice, seemed to settle in, then he’s gradually become more…"

"Discordant," Grubczak prompted.

"Where was he before?" said Trisconi. "I can’t see any previous college record."

"It’s confidential," said Ohuruogu. "Here’s why." She pressed her thumb against an ident patch on the gutenberg, and the image changed. "See?" she said, heavily.

Grubczak craned her head and read aloud. "‘Daniel… educated to tertiary level… Hertford College… King George V grammar school…’ Where on Earth’s that?"

"And ‘The Lazarus Institute’?" said Trisconi. "That’s not a college… Isn’t it a?…" She broke off.

"A hospital?" Grubczak broke in.

"‘Daniel was admitted, after attempts to treat him for…’" This time Trisconi’s voice trailed off into silence. Grubczak, still reading, remained speechless.

"So you see," said Ohuruogu, "if anyone’s ‘reincarnated’…"

"So that’s why Claire gets on with him so well," said Grubczak, with sudden realisation, "She’s always been a bit of a romantic when it comes to Antiquity Studies."

"Claire? Who’s Claire?"

"The girl he spends most of his personal study sessions with," Grubczak and Trisconi answered in unison. "They’re inseparable," Trisconi added.

"Possibly in more ways than one," Grubczak continued. Was that a twinkle in her eye?

"Where are they now?" said Ohuruogu. The two education engineers shook their heads. Ohuruogu flicked at the gutenberg. It was hyperlinked to the Omnipres that tracked the students’ wrist-pods. "Something’s interfering with the signal. They were last detected heading under the Interchange"

"You don’t think they might…" said Trisconi.

"Oh no," said Grubczak. Though she might have been struggling to hide a wry smile. She was a bit of a romantic at heart, too.

-7-

"That was nice," Claire said.

"Really?" said Daniel.

"Really."

"Would you like to do it again?"

"Already?"

"We’ve waited a long time till now."

"And people our age used to do it all the time?"

"Not all the time. They needed to rest occasionally," Daniel winked. "And, usually, when a little older, to be honest. At least, you ought to have been older. And," he waved his hand in act of dismissal, "without quite the age gap."

"What’s it called again?"

"Kissing."

"‘Kissing’," she mused. "It’s a nice word. I often wondered what it would have been like, to have lived a hundred years ago. It always sounds, well, so much nicer than now. So much more alive."

Daniel grinned. "Believe me, if you liked that, you’ll love what comes next."

"You mean ‘sex,’" said she.

"I mean ‘making love’." His face suddenly clouded over. "I’m… I’ve just realised… I’m sorry."

"What? What’s the matter?"

"Well, you really aren’t old enough."

She sighed. "C’m’ere." She kissed him again. "Of course I’m old enough." He was aware that she was breathing slowly but heavily. "After all, I know all the theory. Time for the practical."

He kissed her back, slowly and longingly. "I’m sorry," he said again, hoarsely.

"There’s no need to be," she spoke, hoarsely back.

"No – I mean ‘I’m sorry we’re doing this under an overpass.’"

"Don’t be," she whispered in his ear. "It’s just like in those 20th Century novels. It’s so book."

They kissed again. "I don’t know" he murmured, "the 21st Century has some good points too."

Suddenly, an amplified voice boomed out. "You are surrounded. Come out with your clothes on!"

"They’ve found us!" Claire gasped.

Daniel leapt up. "How did they manage to track us down so quickly?"

"You really aren’t used to this century, are you?"

"Daniel!" a voice boomed, "we know you are having some… problems. Please come and talk to us."

"What are they up to?" hissed Claire. "Are they planning something?"

"In this day and age – what do you think?"

"Daniel!" The voice again. "We’ve got someone here from The Institute. They just want to talk to you."

"Like fun they just want to talk," said Daniel. ‘Like fun,’ – an expression he remembered from The Catcher In The Rye.

"What will they do to you?" Claire demanded.

"More to the point, what will they do to you."

"But I’ve not done anything." Then, realising what she had said: "Neither have you."

"It’s not what you’ve done, it’s what you know."

Again the booming voice: "If you don’t come out, we’ll have to come in and get you!"

Daniel stood at the railing of the gantry platform. "It seems," he said heavily, "I’ve got no choice."

"There’s always a choice!" said Claire. "I don’t want Realignment Programming, or any of their other techno-crap. I want to be me."

Daniel turned and looked at her, then kissed her gently on the forehead. "That’s all I ever wanted. That and being with you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me in both my lives."

He was turning away once more as she grabbed his arm. "That’s the one thing they can’t have. Who we really are. Our lives."

He stared hard at her face. "Do you mean…? Do you really mean…"

She suddenly seem to relax, become calm almost. "It’s the only thing we’ve got to lose. And what have they got to offer us in return?"

"Claire, I –"

"Do you really want to go back?"

"Do you really not?"

"Not without you."

Way below the gantry and some distance back from the overpass, Dr Stinger stood with two nursing attendants and the Community Custodians. Ms Ohuruogu and her education engineers watched in horror as two figures flung themselves from the platform and crashed sickeningly to the ground.

Ms Grubczak screamed. The nursing attendants dashed to the prone stricken forms, motionless on the asphalt.

"Why did they do that?" Ms Grubczak began to sob.

Ms Trisconi shook her head, more puzzled than distressed like her colleague. "They had no cause to rebel."

"Who knows?" said Dr Stinger. "Perhaps we will find out, eventually."

"What do you mean?" said Ms Ohuruogu. "You think you will be able to save them?"

"But of course," said Dr Stinger. "It may take us a little time, a year or two even. But we have the technology. Of course, I must insist that you do not tell anyone – it is still," – he paused – "a sensitive subject. Nevertheless, I promise you we will be able to treat them. Perhaps a little realigning also. Then they will be back with you, bright young students. Their whole lives ahead of them."

The End