STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND
Tom Mazanec
 
Prologue

 Always he could see and feel flashes. They came once a day, 
or twice or more, or not at all on that particular day. When 
a flash would occur, eveything would get another one of
those soft things next to it...indeed, the soft thigs would 
each get another soft thing alongside. He was a child when 
he noticed he could switch the hard things with the soft 
things near them. So he could take a bite out of a candy 
bar, then swich it with a soft candy bar next to it and take 
a bite out of that, and so on until he got sick. He soon 
learned not to do that! When his bike broke in an accident, 
he switched it with an intact soft one near to it. His 
mother saw what happened, and asked how the boy had fixed 
his bike. His mother had him fix other things. Then she 
wondered if he could fix people by what he called 
"switching" with "soft" versions when his father cut off his 
finger in a workshop room accident. Not only could he fix 
the finger, he fixed it so well that his father did not even 
remember the accident. So his parents took him to hospitals, 
and he cured the sick. But the longer the person had been 
sick, the softer the version of the person he had to do the 
switching with. And the healed people never remembered their 
illness. They would be confused as to how they had gotten 
into the hospital and, if they were sick long enough, about 
current events. But they soon accepted that they had been 
sick, since everyone said they had been sick. At least, they 
said they accepted it. Most of them...

 Then came the day when a man came who had been sick most 
his life, with the disease of alcoholism. A scientist put 
sensors on the boy's head, and had him switch the man with 
the softest version he could find, to see if the alcoholism 
could be cured, and to see how he did it (or truth be told, 
if he could do it...scientists are skeptics). The man had 
killed a girl and crippled a boy in a drunken traffic 
accident, and taking part in the experiment was part of the 
social service he required to be paroled after years in 
prison. And the boy looked for a softer version of the man 
than he ever had before, and switched...

 __________________
 
Young David Knight sat on a chair, a helmet with wires on 
his head. The wires led to a computer with a large screen, 
showing a graph of a human brain above a number of wavy 
lines. On the hospital bed he faced was Tom Mazanec, laying 
on his stomach dressed in a hospital gown. A slight elderly 
man, a large middle-aged man and David Knight's parents 
stood next to this tableau.

 "The important thing is that you lie perfectly still. The 
images around you flicker in and out more when you move. I 
have to pick the softest one I can find and switch you with 
it." said David.

 "What do you mean by 'softest'? How can an image be soft or 
hard? Do you mean blurry or faded?" asked the old man.

 "No. I might as well call it 'prizzy' or something. I asked 
mom and dad what the words were for the different kinds of 
images, but they just laughed. Then they got mad and said I 
was making things up, at least until they caught me 
switching the images. But they never told me the right words 
to use. The older an injury or sickness is, the softer the 
image has to be for me to switch"

 "Well, I can see on the screen that your brain waves and 
brain scan are unique. I have never seen or even heard of 
these patterns. Can you perform this switch now?"

 "Yes, at any time. Just give me a few quiet moments to pick 
out the image."

 David seemed to stare out into space beyond the man on the 
bed. Then he jerked slightly, and the computer screen went 
berserk. Tom seemed to flicker an instant, and then he 
screamed.

 "Don't worry" said David's mom. "They often scream when 
they are healed. He will probably be confused for a bit."

 Tom looked around goggle-eyed. "Where am I? What happened? 
What am I doing here? What happened to my Kindle? To my 
clothes? What is going on?"

 "Wow! It was like every neuron fired at once! Let me look 
at your stomach, Mr. Mazanec." said the old man.

 Tom was white as a sheet. The old man helped him off the 
bed and turned around his gown, to look at his stomach. 
"Well, the scar is gone, at least."

 "Scar? What scar?" asked Tom.

 "The scar you got from that shiv in prison."

 "Prison?"

 "Yes. You are here as part of your parole. You've been in 
prison for the last 20 years."

 "Twenty years? What year is it?"

 "2013."

 "That makes no sense. That was the year I last remember."
 
"You remember this year? Excellent!"

 "Is this some kind of CIA experiment? What the hell is 
going on here? Who are you people?"

 "I am Dr. Henderson. This man here is Mr. Lowell, your 
parole officer." pointing to the large middle-aged man 
"These are Edward and Alice Knight and their son David. 
David healed you."

 "Healed me? Healed me of what?"

 "Well first, that scar you got in prison. And secondly, of 
alcoholism, presumably."

 "Alcoholism? I'm not an alcoholic."

 "Maybe yes, maybe not." said Mr. Lowell. "I go with
AA...you are a recovering alcoholic."

 "Mister, my lifetime consumption of alcohol would fit in 
one bottle...most of it communion wine."

 "How long does this confusion last?" asked Mr. Lowell.

 "We don't follow the patients after David heals them, so I 
don't know." said Mr. Knight.

 "I understand that the softer the image, the longer the 
confusion usually lasts." said David.

 "Look, I'm not a patient man. Mr. Mazanec, in 1991 you were 
at point one six, twice the legal limit, driving with a 
suspended license when you struck two children crossing the 
street on their way home from school. You killed one and 
crippled the other for life. You were sentenced to twenty to 
fifty, and the only reason you are out of prison now is 
because you agreed to serve under the Human Experimentation 
of Felons program. After you are examined I am to take you 
to the halfway house."

 "Let me test his memory. How far back can you recite the 
list of Presidents?" said Dr. Henderson.

 "Presidents? I guess to Hoover. Then Roosevelt, Truman, 
Eisenhower, Kennedy..."

 "You forgot Nixon" snapped Mr. Lowell.

 "I wish I could! Kennedy, then Johnson, THEN Nixon, then 
Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr., Obama and 
now Romney."

 "No, it was Eisenhower, Nixon, Humphrey, Richards, 
Stillwell, Grunninger, Millhouse, Brown, Heathcote, and now 
Tollman."

 "Is this some kind of a joke?"

 "This is no joke. Take him to the lab and examine him, and 
then I'll take him to the halfway house."

 They lead a staggering man in a hospital gown out of the 
room.

 __________________
  
They drove up to a large building. Mr. Lowell pulled Tom out 
of the car and dragged him over to the door, ringing on the 
bell. "Here he is, Ms. Oglethorpe." he said as a hatchet 
faced woman came to the door.

 "I am Ms. Oglethorpe. Not Miss, not Mrs., Ms." she said as 
she hauled Tom into the building. "Come into my office." She 
led Tom into the office, and sat down at a desk. 

"Can I have a chair to sit down?" asked Tom.

 "No. I understand you knocked your Grandmother down the 
stairs and broke her hip when you were 9" said Ms. Oglethorpe.

 "No. I never did that."

 Ms. Oglethorpe looked into the folder on the desk. "It says 
quite clearly in your file that you were running around and 
knocked her down the stairs."

 "The files are wrong. I used to run around when I was a 
kid, and my grandmother always said I would knock somebody 
down, but that never happened."

 Ms. Oglethorpe pursed her lips. "Really. I will look into 
that. It will go badly for you if you are lying."

 "I do not lie."

 "We shall see. I see you worked as a librarian before your 
accident."

 "What accident? And I never worked as a librarian."

 Ms. Oglethorpe stood up. "You will cooperate or you will 
suffer."

 "What are you talking about? What am I doing here?"

 "Are you retarded?"

 "No. My IQ is nearly 130."

 Ms. Oglethorpe took Tom by the arm and dragged him out the 
office and down the hall. They came to an elevator and went 
up to the third floor. "This is your room. You will stay 
here and think about your lies. And you will have no supper 
tonight."

 Tom sat on the bed for several minutes after she left. Then 
he looked in the dresser. There were a few clothes, like the 
uniform they had put on him at the hospital, and a little 
underwear. There was a jacket and a coat in the closet. Tom 
was glad that there was winter wear for the weather, since 
it had snowed that afternoon...wait, there was no snow. And 
the weather was brisk, not really cold. How had it warmed up 
so fast?

 Tom went out of the room and slowly walked down the hall. 
He found a phone attached to the wall and dialed 9-1-1. 
"What is the nature of your emergency?"
 the operator said.

 "I've been kidnapped and am being held in this building." 
Tom said. "Can you get here and rescue me? I don't know 
where I am."

 "You are at the Stromgren Halfway House at 4872 Maple Road. 
A squad car is nearby and is on its way." the operator said.

 Tom hung up the phone and went to the stairs he had seen at 
the end of the hall. He ran down the stairs and had just 
found the door when the police car, siren blaring, drove up.

 Tom ran to the car and said "My name is Tom Mazanec, I live 
at 10790 Ravenna Road, Twinsburg. You will have to help me 
in, I don't have my key." The policeman typed the name into 
the computer. "Thomas A. Mazanec, Social Security number 
284-49-7155, Date of Birth March 6, 1958?"

 "No, my middle intial is R, for Richard, and my birthdate 
is March 5. The Social Security number is wrong, too., after 
the first two digits. But it is weird that you came one day 
off, and the same first and last names right. My 'R's look 
like 'A's, someone must have confused me with someone else."

 Ms. Oglethorpe came to the car. "What is going on here!?" 
she demanded.

 "This man claims to be kidnapped. He claims he is someone 
else than the Tom Mazanec released from prison this morning. 
We'' take him down to the station and DNA and fingerprint 
him, get to the bottom of this."

 "Yeah, and you can keep him there, as far as I am 
concerned!" Ms. Oglethorpe called out as the car pulled 
away.

 __________________
  
"You know, if you made a false emergency call, you are in 
big trouble."

 "I did not make a false call. I don't know what is going 
on, but I was taken there against my will."

 "The computer says someone a lot like you went to the 
Halfway House on being released under the Human 
Experimentation on Felons program. That someone lost the 
right to his will when he broke the law. And if you are that 
someone, you are going back to prison, not to the Halfway 
House."

 After a bit Tom said "I bet you are having a lot of hassle 
enforcing the curfew here in Twinsburg, aren't you? In fact, 
it should be starting soon."

 "What curfew? They probably should make kids stay in at 
night, but we don't bother to focus on kids here in 
Twinsburg. It's a pretty good town."

 "By the way, where are your masks? You don't know if I have 
the flu incubating....actually, I had it last month. Got 
sick as a dog. Couple of my relatives died."

 "That's too bad, Bub, but why should we wear masks? We're 
cops, not the Lone Ranger."

 "Why, the flu. The bird flu."

 "Look, Mr. Manazac, quit fooling around already!" snapped 
the cop.

 Tom did not bother risking the correcting of his name. He 
rode the rest of the way in silent thought. He had not seen 
a mask all day. And the buildings looked intact, not a 
broken window or other damage anywhere. What was going on? 
Was he having a bad dream? Or was the martial law, the 
nuclear wars in Korea, South Asia and the Middle East, the 
riots and all the other horrors of the last three months, 
since the first reports of human transmissable avian flu the 
week after Romney's election, been the bad dream?

 They reached the station and Tom was led in. They took a 
blood sample and fingerprints. "It will take several hours 
to get the results. You'll just have to wait there. Frankly, 
I know you're this ex-con. As soon as we get confirmation, 
you're going back to the Big House to finish the rest of 
your term, after making a false kidnapping accusation." said 
the sargeant.

 Tom went to a chair and looked at the magazines laying on a 
stand next to it. He sat down and began leafing through 
them. There were hunting and woman's magazines which he had 
no interest in, but there was a Newsweek for February 4, 
2013. There was a cover story "The Falling Sky", about 
President Tollman addressing Congress about devoting his 
second term to helping the world cope with ozone depletion. 
Apparently, the ozone depletion properties of CFCs had not 
been discovered until the 1980s, when scientists observed 
and tried to explain a growing ozone hole in the Antarctic 
and then, soon afterward, the Arctic. The chemical 
manufacturers waged a publicity and politics war similar to 
that of the cigarette manufacturers of a generation before. 
Only this year, with the sudden and rapid depletion of ozone 
over the tropics in the last several years, had CFCs finally 
been abolished. But ozone would continue diminishing for a 
few decades. Already, fears were being raised about eye 
damage and skin cancer for the residents of the equatorial 
nations. But the unexpected result was the severity of the 
damage to the crops of those countries in the last couple 
years. In 2012 it was so severe that food riots and 
political instability was spreading throughout the 
underdeveloped world.

 That was too far for Tom. He distinctly remembered an "All 
in the Family" episode where Mike predicted CFCs of spray 
cans would destroy the world, and he was sure that was 
before the 1980s. And President Tollman's second term? He 
did not even remember the first. And advertisements had 
things like "WNT:cococola^contest#srv133872" which did not 
look like any web address he had ever seen. The ads also had 
circular fingerprint like bullseyes that did not look like 
any QR code or HCCB code he had ever seen.

 Tom was a fan of alternate history. He wondered if he was 
what such fans call an ISOT, although that was also what 
fans call an ASB. He looked through all the magazines, 
noting differences with what he remembered.

 Finally, the sargeant called him to his desk. He was 
holding the phone "Let's get the results." He smiled as he 
listened to the phone. Then his smile dropped. "What the 
hell do you mean!?" he demanded. Another moment passed.
"What, he's got an evil twin or something? How can that be 
possible?" Again he listened. "You're sure? There's no 
mistake? OK." The sargeant looked at Tom. "The DNA matches, 
but the prints don't."

 __________________
  
"Well, I guess you are out of trouble. But where is your 
twin brother?" said the sarge.

 "I don't think I'm out of trouble. I have nowhere to go. 
And I have no brother."

 "Just go back home. And who was the ex-con, if you don't 
have a brother?"

 "I probably don't have a home here. My doppleganger was 
supposed to be sent to a halfway house, I don't know where 
else he is supposed to live.. He has messed up my life. If 
he is here somewhere, I can't take his place, and even if he 
isn't I don't -"

 "What are you babbling about? You must have an identical 
twin to have someone with your DNA and different 
fingerprints...I know that much. And we have to get that 
twin to the halfway house."

 "I don't have a twin. I am from a different timeline...a 
world where history happened differently."

 "You mean like Mars?"

 "No...a different dimension, where history changed...at 
least since 1960? Was that when Nixon was elected here?"

 "Yeah, 1960. Why?"

 "Because John F. Kennedy was elected in 1960 in my 
timeline."

 "Timeline? You mean you're reincarnated or something? From 
a different time?"

 "No, timeline. I am from another universe, that split off 
from this one...probably in the summer of 1957 when I was in 
my mother's womb, to give me different fingerprints than I 
have there."

 "Look, just tell me where your brother is."

 "I don't have a brother. I was somehow transfered to this-"


 "OK, that is it. If you are not going to cooperate and keep 
giving me this bullshit, I am going to have you committed."

 "Then you'll just have to have me commited." replied Tom.
Come to think of it, maybe he was crazy. With nowhere to go, 
it would be the best place for him. But what about the 
fingerprints and DNA? Did he have a twin he couldn't 
remember?

 __________________
  
Tom slept for a long time after being assigned a room...but 
then, it had been a long time since he had slept before, 
even before the finding himself here. He had read on the Web 
of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan a the day before everything 
went crazy, and that was enough to keep one awake. Of course 
it could be just a rumor...rumors were half of what had gone 
wrong with the world in recent weeks. The rumor that America 
had a cure for the superflu that brought several million 
Mexicans across the border in a fruitless search for the 
nonexistant cure. Or the rumor that the cure was being 
rationed to Whites, leading to mass riots in America's 
African-American areas. But Tom had read somewhere that 
China had 3,000 nukes pointed at the United States. Would 
Romney go to war with China over Taiwan? Or was that a fever 
dream...was the president someone else...Tollman, was that 
the name?

 They gave Tom food and kept him locked in his room. There 
was a television, but most of the channels were unfamiliar. 
The news was about issues he was vaguely familiar with, like 
Ozone Depletion, or totally unfamiliar with, like the 
Vasharian Compact or Krasnomics. On the History Network 
(wasn't it the History Channel, thought Tom) was a ten year 
after retrospect of the California Crisis. California, 
facing bankruptcy, attempted to claim the Federal Tax monies 
of its residents. President Brown obtained a federal 
injunction, and sent federal marshalls to enforce it. They 
met militia violence, and hackers crashed the IRS computer 
systems. New York also tried to seize their residents' 
Federal taxes. A financial panic ensued, and Brown declared 
emergency powers. Congress tried to rescind his authority. 
The nation came to the verge of collapse, before Justin 
Heathcote's "Grand Compromise" led to the resolution of the 
crisis and put him on the fast tract to the Presidency. And 
Tom remembered nothing of it. On the Golden Oldies Music 
Channel, all the songs were different after 1958, even when 
he recognized an artist. In 1958 they sounded...off, not 
quite right somehow. Tom grew more and more sure he was in 
an ATL with a PoD in the summer of 1957, when he was first 
forming fingerprints in utero.

 Over the next several days he saw three doctors. They 
interviewed him about his background, his life, and about 
events in history. They wrote a lot about his answers in 
thir notebooks, and tried to get him to remember what they 
remembered. But he insisted on remembering what he 
remembered. He told them of the mess in E2K, when the 
Supreme Court had to pick the Presidential winner (who had 
lost the popular vote). The doctor countered with the 
"Orwellian election" of 1984, "won" by Democrat Joseph 
Blackstone until an elector had a near fatal heart attack 
and was "born again" to vote for Howard Stillwell, throwing 
the election into the House, which voted along party lines 
to give Stillwell and the GOP the Presidency (but the Senate 
gave the Vice Presidency to Democrat Maxwell Grunninger). 
There was a Constitutional Amendment because of that one. 
Tom agreed that was a bigger mess.

 Then they let him alone a couple days, only to wake him at 
the crack of dawn one day and exhaustively interrogate him 
on details from his described life history and world 
history, until he was tangled up in the details. Again he 
was taken at last back to his room, but the television was 
cut off, and he was told it would be cut off until he 
cooperated. Another day passed, and he was led into a room, 
where he was given an injection that made him light-headed, 
and a man kept telling him he was going to sleep, but would 
still hear and obay. This was a waste of time. Yet again he 
was led back to his room.

 Then the next day a doctor came in with a man in a dark 
suit, who said the sentence Reagan called the scariest in 
the English Language..."I'm from the government, and I'm 
here to help you."

 __________________
   
Tom was taken to a black car and got in. The government man, 
who identified himself as Mr. Smith, said they were going to 
Glenn NASA in Cleveland (John Glenn was the first man on the 
Moon here, in the summer of 1976...a single 6 man mission of 
two weeks, said Smith). He claimed not to know what was up 
with this, just that he was to take Tom to the center. Tom 
was silent, watching the scenery pass. Finally, he arrived 
and was led to a room with several men and the lad he had 
seen at the beginning of this ordeal. One of the men said 
"Mr. Mazanec, come over here and look at this." On the table 
indicated was a smartphone with the number 497116 on the 
screen. "OK, David, do the switch." said the man. The lad 
frowned at the smartphone and suddenly it was a couple 
inches to the side and the number was 398952. "Again". 
497116. "Again". 398952. "See, we have two different 
smartphones, with two different randomly chosen numbers. I 
programmed the random number generator to use the output of 
a geiger counter as the seed. I ran the generator after the 
last 'flash' David perceived, then placed the phone on the 
table based on the number generated. The phones are in two 
different timelines, where radioactive decay happens to 
different atoms."

 "You know I come from an alternate timeline? And is this 
kid the one who brought me here? And what is a 'flash'?

 "Yes, we know you come from an alternate timeline now. And 
yes, Mr. Knight is the one who brought you here. A 'flash'
is what David calls what seems to be the splitting of the 
timelines. We have timed two of these flashes, and both 
agree, to within the time delay of David reporting them, 
with the time of gamma ray flashes recorded by satellites. 
Gamma ray flashes are believed to be the formation of black 
holes, events apparently singular enough to split the 
universe in two. Random quantum differences in radioactive 
decay then change the two universes from each other, and the 
changes snowball over time. The further back Dave makes the 
switch from, the more different the things switched. You are
by far the farthest back he has ever done, so you are the 
most different by far."

 "Are you going to send me back?"

 "Actually, we don't seem to be able to do that. If the 
universe splits once a day on average, after a month there 
will be a billion timelines. After two months a quintillion 
and an octillion after three months. Out of all these, David 
"sees" the dopplegangers that are at the same place, and in 
the same bodily position and size as the person here, and 
switches one of them with the person here. In order to send 
you home, you would have to be in the same place as your 
doppleganger and in the same position as him...and we don't 
know what that is. And even if we did, by now, after some 55 
years since the divergence, there would be astronomically 
more duplicates of you, even with those restrictions, than 
there are atoms in the universe. David would never be able 
to find our timeline's Thomas Mazanec."

 "Maybe it is for the better. At least a billion people have 
died in the last twelve weeks or so there, of the flu and 
the wars."

 "What flu and wars?" asked another one of the men.

 "There is a superflu ravaging the world where I came from. 
I got it myself last month...lost half my weight. I used to 
be fat. It's already killed hundreds of millions directly, 
and hundreds of millions more indirectly from war and social 
breakdown."

 "And you had this? You have been exposed and contracted 
this? Get the CDC on the phone immediately, we have to 
quarantine anyone who has been in contact with Mr. Mazanec 
at once!"

 "I'm probably not contagious anymore, I've mostly 
convalesced. And I had a relatively mild case. But I'm not 
sure."

 "We'll have to make sure. Get everyone who met Mr. Mazanec 
into isolation. And we can't have David switching people 
anymore...he's not curing them, he's just stranding them in 
other timelines and kidnapping doubles to take their place.
And we might get another wonky virus if we keep it up." 

"What becomes of me? I will never finish my Starweb game or 
find out what happens next on the Kevin and Kell webcomic, 
but I would like to have a decent life here."

 "Well, you will be in isolation till we are sure you are 
not contagious. After that, I don't know. Perhaps someone in 
your family can take care of you."

 "What about the money my doppleganger had? Do I get access 
to it?"

 "I'm afraid your doppleganger had no money...he spent it 
all trying to beat the rap for his drunken driving, 
vehicular homicide and vehicular assault. Maybe we can 
arrange something with the government to get you 
acculturated to here."

 "I guess I will have to get used to it. But I will sure 
miss my old culture...and I can never go back. Maybe I 
should thank David...it looked like there was about to be a 
complete holocaust with China last I heard and he probably 
saved my life. But at what a cost."

 What a cost.

 __________________
 

DRIZZLE DRAZZLE DRUZZLE DROME
TIME FOR THIS ONE TO COME HOME