Read Genosimulation (A Teen & Young Adult Science Fiction): A Young Adult Science Fiction Thriller for Free Online Page A

mystery.
    "I have a job for you, son."
    "A job?"
     
    *
     
    The job waited for him in the closed, third room. It had a
quite comfortable chair, a small desk, a TV without an antenna, and one
additional item, one Zomy had never seen.
    It was a strange-looking plastic box on which many buttons were
arranged; on them were foreign letters. The box was connected to a TV by one
cable, to the electricity by another.
    "What is it?"
    "This is your future," Rabbi Eligad answered.
"I think its name is Commodore 64. Here, the operating instructions are
nearby. There are some newspapers there to help you. Whenever you want to eat
..."
    But Rabbi Eligad paused, and smiled. The young boy was
already deep in the future, an eye focused on the opening glimmers of the
screen, his other reading the instruction booklet of the first computer he had
ever seen in his life.
     
    *
     
    Mr fate: Commodore 64?!?!?!?!?!?
    Nucleotide: Don’t tell me you don’t know them, you also had
one.
    Mr fate: I know I did! You started with one too?
    Nucleotide: I knew every byte and bit in it. I think it was
the best computer I've ever had, even when I now command computing power
billions of times stronger.
    Mr fate: Peeks and pokes?
    Nucleotide: LOL, remember?
    Mr fate: How could I forget? Without it nothing worked. So
wait - you learned to program it?
    Nucleotide: I learned to program it, then he brought me a
Sinclair Spectrum, I learned that too. Then Apple 2 C, then IBM.
    Mr fate: A Brief History of Time.
    Nucleotide: AT later, then 386 ...
    Mr fate: How did he get them?
    Nucleotide: Rabbi Eligad? I have no idea. Every few months
there was the new computer waiting for me, or a new book about programming, or
a new brochure from abroad... waiting for me to start to learn it.
    Mr fate: Did you see how he bought them?
    Nucleotide: Never.
    Mr fate: Such a strange, little rabbi dealing with
computers…
    Nucleotide: I told you, he's special.
    Nucleotide: But at the time I didn’t think about it at all.
I finally had a real new home, I had a reason not to be on the street, I had a
hot meal every day...
    Mr fate: And your mother knew?
     
    *
     
    "It is a great honor," she finally said.
    They sat in the yellowing small kitchen. The kitchen Zomy
knew so well until three years ago. The kitchen that today was almost
completely foreign to him. Just like his mother.
    She was now shorter than he was, he noticed. Low, bent, old.
Absolutely not the same tall, exalted figure that he remembered. She wore a
head cover, as always. But she was wrinkled, like her dress.
    "You…do not ask why?"
    "Anyway, you lost all control. You became a savage. Now
someone else will take responsibility for you. Blessed be the rabbi."
    The words carved deep into Zomy's heart. Savage? Him? Deep
voice or not, he still felt a yearning for a time when he had a father. And
mother. And a house. And brothers. Tears sprouted in both eyes, but did not
find any other expression.
    "And you don’t want to take responsibility for me,
Mom?" He surprised himself with his old thin voice.
    "You… like your father. Dreaming. Well, when you were
here, you could not be understood. After he left…I do not know. You chose to
flee."
    "I didn’t choose, Mom ..."
    "Look at your brothers. Nobody left the house. Two
married, already. Their father died too, but they...”
    And she stopped talking, choking a little.
    Hid her face in her hands. Turned.
    "Didn't you worry for me all this time?" he almost
whispered. "Mom?"
    But his mother did not answer. Instead, she turned to the
tiny, white stove, and started working on some old pots, containing dishes Zomy
hadn't tasted for years. The aromas aroused him, but he fought the urge to look
inside.
    In the past, he would get to taste without asking.
    But that was in the past.
     
    *
     
    Nucleotide: It was an honor to be adopted by Rabbi Eligad.
    Mr fate: Adopted?
    Nucleotide: Not as you understand it. Adopted - to school.
    Mr fate: And they knew he taught you about