Unexpected company from the future

About a half hour before sunrise this morning I went out to my porch with my first cup of coffee and was surprised to find a young man sitting on the steps.

"Can I help you?" I asked pleasantly enough considering the circumstances but people do get lost in the woods out here.

He had on a Tee shirt (red), Levi's and was barefooted. "Probably not...oh, I'm sorry about your lawn."

"What?" I questioned as I looked out across the lawn. I saw nothing unusual but the yard light illuminating the lawn was blocked by my two oaks and four pecan trees out there...a lot of the yard was shadowed.

"There's a couple of dead grass spots underneath that pecan tree," he said, pointing at one of the larger trees. "It's where Smith and I accidently beamed in..."

I still didn't see what he was pointing at so I sat down in one of the porch chairs while I recalled images of 'Star Trek'. "Beamed in?" I said. "You mean like 'Beam me up, Scotty'? Should I look for a spaceship?"

"Spaceship?" He smiled, "No, spaceships went out a long time ago."

"Come on up and sit a spell," I offered, utilizing the age old southern invite.

He stepped up on the proch, sat down and closed his eyes.

"You tired?" I asked. "Care for a cup of coffee?"

He opened his eyes. "No, I'm not tired...I was just checking my history bytes. Coffee would be okay, a Mountain Dew would be even better."

"Memory bytes? Are you some kind of Robot?"

"No," he said and laughed. "I'm an MIT student from the year twenty-sixty-five. Do you know anything about MIT?"

"Some; I'm a writer and I do subscribe to Discovery Magazine."

He closed his eyes for a few seconds then opened them. "Oh yes, a fine magazine in its time. We don't have 'magazines now...I mean in twenty-sixty-five."

I never assume anyone is crazy until I get to know them. "So you're time-traveling?"

"You might say that although time traveling itself is still on the drawing board. My ending up here is kind of a mistake...a misdirection of a sort. My pal, Smith, and I were busy experimenting with--to put it in your terms--'beaming' things around. It's 'Mystery Hunt' week at MIT right now. We were trying to 'Beam' parts to us for a two-thousand Ford SUV and misdirected half the split photon beam, using Roger Penrose's theory. Quantum math says it couldn't be done..."

"Whoa, boy! You're getting into nerdom and I ain't no genius." I got up. "Let me get your coffee; I don't have any Mountain Dew. Cream or sugar?"

"Lots of sugar, please," he said.

I went in and brought out the sugar bowl with his mug and he proceeded to make syrup out of his coffee.

I sat back down and said, "I don't care to know much about the future as I prefer to concentrate on the problems we have right now. By the way, what's going to happen to you if your pal can't figure out what happened and can't get you back?"

"Oh, I'm not worried about that...he'll run his memory chip and repeat the experiment exactly, including the mistake. I'll probably dissappear any minute. I will let you know the 'problems' you're concentrating on now--and I probably can guess most of them--will no longer exist in twenty-sixty-five."

"Why would that be so?" I couldn't help asking.

"Around the twenty-thirties, micro scientists created a computer no larger than a pea. They were able to plant it in the brain and neurology had already advanced to the point it could be connected, so to speak, to the brain. It marketed famously and in two decades nearly everyone had one implanted and could interface with what we call the 'World Peace' main frame--Orwell's predicition realized, except 'Big Brother' was programed by MIT grads who envisioned world peace, not by controlling minds but by programs based on diplomatic communication. War became a thing of the past. Humanity in twenty-sixty-five is truly 'civilized'--a word hardly appropriate right now in your time."

"I can't disagree with you about that. I really am..."

He suddenly dissappeared. Not Star Trekky like but just was gone in an instant.

I got up, went in and wrote 'six pack of Mountain Dew' on the shopping list hanging on the refrigerator. When wifey gets up I'll just tell her it's for unexpected company.