Perfect

Perfect--Part 1

Some strange sound awakened me. It was coming from an object on the nightstand that looked like a hockey puck. For some reason it had the word 'amazon' on it. There were buttons on top, so I started pushing all of them, but the most I could do was turn the sound down, but not completely off.

I looked around for a clock, but didn't see one. I had no idea what time it was, but it appeared to be mid-morning. If I had to guess, it was about 9:30.

I took a shower, but i didn't have any food. Not that I would know how to use anything in this kitchen anyway. I didn't eat, but had a glass of water. I will ask the Professor later how to get food and use this kitchen.

A few minutes later there was a knock at the door. It was Professor Ootrub.

"Good morning. How was everything?"

"How do I turn off that thing", I pointed to the hockey puck.

"Oh that. I forgot to tell you about that. Her name is Alexa. Just say Alexa, and whatever you want her to do."

He turned toward the device and said, "Alexa, stop." Just like that the annoying sound stopped. 

"See.", he said smiling.

"This place is weird."

"Let's go, please. We have a big day ahead."

I followed him to the third floor and he took me into a small room and asked me to sit in a nice leather office chair. Accross from the chair was a desk with another leather chair. I sat in the chair and he took a seat at the desk.

He pulled out a bunch of papers from the desk. "I am going to ask you a few questions. The idea here is to figure out where you have been all these years."

"Okay."

"Good. Okay. First, what was the last thing you remember doing?"

"Driving. I was driving down a small road through the countryside. Then I remember not being able to control the car and it went off the road and into a deep ditch."

He was looking at me with great interest and then said, "This happened 58 years ago, yet you have a great recolection."

"Well, to me it happened just the other night."

"That's another thing. You claim this happened recently, yet it had been in fact years ago. I am also intrigued that you haven't aged in 58 years."

"I think my car is still down there. A 1961 Ford Fairlane."

"1961 Fairlane?"

"Yes. I paid a lot for that car. About 2000 dollars."

"2000?, well now it's worth...well, don't worry. We will look after that for you."

"Okay."

"Let's move on. I am now going to ask you some basic knowledge questions."

"Okay."

"What is pi?"

"Pie? You mean like apple, blueberry, strawberry?"

"No. Not that pie. I mean pi. The math one."

"Pi is used to calculate the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter. 3.141592653589793238462643383279. Pi to 30 decimal places. Is that enough?"

The Professor looked at me, amazed.

"You know that. I mean, just...in your head like that?"

"Yes.", I said nonchalantly, "Who doesn't?"

"Let's try another.  What is deciamal 42 converted to hexidecimal?"

Almost instantly the answer popped into my head and I asnswered, "2A."

"...and binary?"

Again the answer was right there, "101010."

"Oh, boy."

"What?"

"You shouldn't know that. Hexidecimal and binary were not commonly used in 1962. Tell me about the last movie you've seen?"

"Well, I don't go often. More than a year ago."

"That's okay. Tell me. Everything you know about it."

"Psycho. Releaed in September 1960. Starring Anthony Perkins and Vera Miles. Directed by Alfred Hitchcock. Written by Joseph Stefano..."

"Okay that's good, but you could have looked that up."

"Why would I? I didn't know you were going to ask that. Besides, I don't know how to look anything up in this crazy world of yours."

"Tell me about the movie 'Star Wars'."

"What's that?"

"Interesting."

"What?"

"Nothing. We need to do more work."

"That's all?"

"For now. Thank you."

"Okay.", I got up and returned to my apartment on the fifth floor.

I was wondering what this was all about. What were they exactly up to?

After about an hour, I got bored just staying in my apartment, so I spent most of the rest of the day just wandering the facility. It really was an amazing place.

Apartments were on the fifth floor, and the research labs were on three and four. The first floor contained mostly administration offices, a set of restrooms, and a cafeteria. The second floor looked a bit different. Instead of several small rooms, there were only four large rooms, and these were labeled 'PHYSICAL TESTING'.

I'm happy about finding the cafeteria. I am very hungry. I found out that being a research subject, my meals are free. Well, not quite. Only the 'special' is free. It was mid-afternoon and the lunch special was still on. It was a chicken salad sandwich, potato salad, and a coffee or soft drink.

I received my launch, and sat down to eat and looked around at the rest of the people in the cafeteria and wondered how many of them were test subjects like myself.

The food wasn't too bad, and I turned around to look at the specials board. They have the breakfast, lunch, and dinner specials listed for the entire week. Today's dinner is a breaded pork chop with peppercorn-mushroom sauce served with mixed veggies and mashed potatoes and lime Jell-O for dessert. Breakfast tomorrow morning will be a slice of toast with strawberry jam and two eggs (over-easy or scrambled). Kind of a sad breakfast for something that is supposed to be the most important meal of the day. If I wanted to pay for breakfast, I could have three eggs, an English muffin, home fries, and three slices of bacon or two sausage links for seven dollars. Hmmm...free or seven dollars? Then there is always the option to buy my own food and experiment with those weird appliances in my kitchen. I'm not ready to do that, yet. Besides, I'm not even sure how much the 10 dollars I had to my name would buy in this world. In 1962, that would buy a week's worth of groceries.

After lunch I decded to explore the grounds. The building was surrounded by forest, but at the back was an area you could walk around or sit. There were benches and picnic tables and even a little pond with coy fish. The pond was fed by a little water fall at one end. It was actually quite a nice little area. the weather is bnice today. Warm and sunny with just a few clouds. I decided to take a seat on one of the benches and enjoy the rest of the day, until dinner time, anyway.

I fell asleep.

When I awoke, it was getting dark. I got up quickly and hurried to the cafeteria. I want my pork chop. When I arrived at the cafeteria it was closed. Dammit.

I went back up to my apartment and decided to just go right to bed. I hope that the hopckey puck would wake me up in time for the breakfast special.