August

Issue 35

    When he woke, he was Ricky Smith.  He was seventeen years old, and the year was 1956.  On a simple table lay a copy of The Last Question by Isaac Asimov.  He hurried to read it, for he was the generically perfect audience for that particular story, and it spoke to him in a way it could never speak to anyone else ever again.

    After he had finished, he grew sleepy, until at last he lied down on the bare floor and shut his eyes.  He awoke as Tyler McHenry, middle-aged lover of books.

    The technology had not come cheap, and those who knew Tyler both envied his ability to afford the equipment and resented his misuse of it...