With and Without Class by David Fleming Read Free Book Online Page B

liked this one, so I played along, “Are you really an alien?”
    â€œThings aren’t always as they seem. Like Bethany. She was a Nazi sympathizer in the second Great War.”
    â€œWhat’s… sympathizer?”
    â€œNot sure,” he shrugged, “Ask her.”
    â€œWhy’d you have to leave?”
    â€œSubjects were strong, too strong. Got tired of building the tower. We were supposed to have a republic, eventually, but I told them we’d work out minor stuff as we went. I ended up taking care of most details of their lives for some fees.” He rubbed over his forehead, “They didn’t thank me. And I had to leave, quickly.”
    I cringed at Grandpa, “You were bad?”
    â€œDictator’s the best ruler. A benevolent dictator cares for his people. It’s the extra fuss of government that holds the people down. Talks all about it in that Greek Republic. And about a man needing a woman and his having fair rights on her.” (There is no such sentiment as this last part in Plato’s Republic. I checked.)
    â€œWhat’s in your wallet?”
    â€œThe Magic-Fiver.” His hand rested on the wallet. “Let’s see—”
    Bethany barked from the kitchen steps, “STOP LYING TO THEM KIDS!”
    â€œBITE THAT TONGUE IN TWOS!” Grandpa straightened his jacket then eyed his empty glass before flipping open the thick wallet. “I can show you part of it.”
    â€œIs it money?”
    â€œYes. It’s a souvenir. I had it sent to me in a much, much bigger ship. The size of a baseball. Took a long time to get here. Ships of normal scales don’t travel so good. Worth about the same as one of Uncle Sam’s five dollar bills.” He pulled the bill out. It rustled like sandpaper and was black like charcoal with thin purple lines. “And it’s got my picture in the center just like Andrew Jackson.” He flattened it on the TV-tray, being careful to cover a spot with his three fingers that was just to the left of center. I looked at the supposed portrait and felt embarrassment, maybe real shame for the first time. Inspecting the sloppy, thin purple lines it seemed a child had drawn a cross between several mop heads and a starfish.
    â€œThat’s not real. You’re not real.”
    â€œYes I am. It is too.”
    â€œYou don’t look like one.”
    â€œThat’s because only my brain had to change. And don’t worry, only a little bit of that alien brain got passed along to you. Besides, best people ever lived got a little alien in their brains.”
    â€œShow me under your fingers.”
    â€œCan’t. It’ll hurt your eyes and your brain. Under these fingers is what stops the counterfeiters.”
    â€œThey wouldn’t use paper. They’d use computers for money.”
    â€œWhat’s that? You mean, like telephone money. That don’t work. You put the money in the telephone lines and people find a way to take it out. And this. This reminds people everyday. It reminds them who’s taking care of them. But you had to have the right equipment to make them. It’s hard to make, only one machine anywhere could make it.”
    I tried to lift up his fingers, “Let me see.”
    â€œI can’t. Your brain’s not hooked-up to see it right. You ever draw a cube made of lines and pretend it was a real block coming out of the page.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œThat’s your brain being tricked by the paper into thinking something that’s flat is not-flat. Now, if you got something that can print lines real thin, print ’em just right, it can trick a brain, like the brain I got, into thinking it’s got some shape to it, plus an extra dimension… uh, some extra types of shapes you can’t see. And it can make you think it’s moving.”
    â€œNo it can’t, Grandpa.”
    â€œWhy not! Space and time is part of the