dadbabysitter

D.A.D. SENDS A BABYSITTER - Part 1

A Story Set in the Brave New World of D.A.D.

Chapter One: 'Little' Alistair

Mrs. Cullum walked back and forth in her bedroom smoking a cigarette. She had almost chewed off her red lipstick in her agitation.

Her maid, Gloria, was nervously straightening out Madam's dressing table. Gloria had seen Mrs. Cullum in these moods before and knew an explosion was coming.

"That miserable little fuck!" Mrs. Cullum growled. She threw her cigarette across the room and Gloria hastened to get it before it set anything on fire. "It's not fair!" Mrs. Cullum suddenly shrieked.

She rushed to her dressing table and looked at herself in the mirror.

"Look at me!" she shrieked. "I look a hundred years old." She looked approximately twenty-eight years old, but was - in fact - considerably older, almost sixty in fact. But the longevity therapy that had been developed arrested the age process considerably. It was true, however, that Mrs. Cullum's face showed signs of wear and tear.

"That little shit is turning me into a hag!" Mrs. Cullum shrieked.

She was referring to her son Alistair, her twenty-two years old, and only child.

"I can't even keep him in a boarding school for Christ's sake!" Mrs. Cullum shrieked. "And since his bastard father took off with Auntie Sue, I've got the whole shitty burden on my shoulders."

Mrs. Cullum's face turned red and she grabbed up a jar of face cream.

"Oh shit," Gloria thought, "here's where she throws the damn jar and I get to spend two hours cleaning it up."

Mrs. Cullum didn't throw the jar, however, her face suddenly softened. Then she smiled and threw back her head and laughed.

"Oh, my darling Alistair," she sang, "your life is about to change, my dear. Change! Change! Change!"

Mrs. Cullum turned to her maid. "Gloria. I want you to turn on the omnicomp in the study and send for Alistair; I'll meet him there!"

The omnicomp was a technilogical wonder; a computer / matter transporter that had revolutionzed both communication and transportation. "Beam me up, Scotty!" was no longer a clever line from an ancient television series. Mrs. Cullum's omnicomp, with its glowing metallic portal, stood in the center of her study. She had ordered it in light yellow to complement the furnishings in the room.

Mrs. Cullum typed a series of numbers into her omnicomp and waited. The screen lit up and the calm face of a digified-looking, gray-haired man appeared.

"Mr. Nelson?" Mrs. Cullum asked.

"Yes, this is Mr. Nelson," the man replied.

"My friend, Mrs. Shore, advised me to contact you, did she tell you about my terrible dilemma?"

"Yes, madam, she did, and we are eager to help you. Indeed, it is our legal obligation to address your situation and we would have done so if you had not taken the option to contact us yourself. D.A.D. is not pleased with your son's upbringing."

Mrs. Cullum felt her blood pressure rise, but she restrained herself, a very unusual act. Diane Cullum had heard unpleasant stories about D.A.D. response to people who tried to interfer with their work. She, for one, didn't want to be taken to an island Dome for training.

"I am looking for a Babysitter for my little Alistair," Mrs. Cullum said, as haughtily as he could. She didn't like the cool, restrained look in Mr. Nelson's face. "I expect someone who can take charge and who will....(She searched for a phrase to decribe what she wanted for Alistar, and found a crude but understandable one.).....straighten him out!"

"How soon would you like the Babysitter?" Mr. Nelson asked.

"Immediately!" Mrs. Cullum snapped.

"Then we will make the selection ourselves. Usually I visit the home and go through a catalog, however, we have scans of your son. I will select the Sitter myself."

"How soon can he arrive?" Mrs. Cullum asked.

"Our Sitters are all D.A.D. - trained. They are all ready to go at a moment's notice. I shall make my choice, contact the Man and await your call. I dare say that if you type in our code within fifteen minutes, your sitter will be ready to present himself."

"Good," Mrs. Cullum said lifting her head and trying to look in control. "I demand prompt service."

"Tell me, Mrs. Cullum," Mr. Nelson said, "are you fully familiar with D.A.D. codes and laws?"

Mrs. Cullum sniffed. She didn't like to be questioned and she seldom admitted that she didn't know something.

"I know enough," she said with a smirk.

For the first time, Mr. Nelson smiled. "Good," he said. "Then, I'll await the code. Good day, madam."

"Goodbye!" Mrs. Cullum snapped and she hit the release key with a thump!

"Impossible, arrogant man. Just like all men," Diane Cullum thought.

The door of the study opened and Gloria's hand appeared, she was holding on to the door frame and struggling.

"Please," Gloria's voice called to someone in the hall outside the study. "Uh, Alistair, your mother is wai....."

"Get off me!" came another voice. "Get off!!"

Gloria grunted, pulled and Alistair Cullum was hauled into the study.

Gloria hastily shut the study door and secured it with a key.

Alistair was a tow-headed blond dressed in a Star Wars t-shirt and blue jeans. The blue jeans were dirty, worn and had holes in the knees and one at the back, just below the boy's butt. Alistair liked his jeans that way and cultivated an 'alleyboy' look.

Despite his twenty-two years, Alistair looked like a typical ten year old. Oh, the wonders of longevity therapy. The boy was good looking, or would have been if he hadn't worn a perpetual pout. He had a sweet, pink mouth, just beginning to lose it's baby look. He had a thin slightly-upturned nose and almond-shaped hazel eyes. The brown eyes were a striking contrast to the light blond hair.

Alistair's hair was a straight, thick mop that flopped down over his forehead and created a veil through which is almond shaped eyes peered out suspiciously. The boy stood with his feet apart and played with an illuminated globe that he held in one hand. He eyed his mother with nothing like affection.

Diane Cullum looked at her son as if he were a stranger in her presence.

"Alistair," she said cooly, "I am at the end of the rope with you...."

"Cliche," Alistair said dryly. It was an unnerving feature of the longevity therapy that someone who looked like a 'little boy' spoke from the experience of two decades. It was particularly unnerving if they had the personality of an Alistair.

"Don't you dare be fresh!" Diane Cullum snapped. "That's the problem! You are a disrespectful BRAT! And, I've taken steps....."

".....out of this house, I hope," Alistair said, spinning the globe in his hand. It emitted a sudden blast of music. It was the "Alleyboys!", Alistair's favorite music group....

"Uh!" Diane exclaimed. "Do you have a chip from that disgusting music group in your music ball?"

"Uh huh!" Alistair said, his face expressionless.

"They are forbidden! They've received notice from High Father at D.A.D. Headquarters that they cannot perform in public until they present a more positive model for young people."

"Like you!" Alistair said bitterly. "You're a positive role model, mommy! You smoke illegal tobacco cigarettes, which D.A.D. has also outlawed, and hang out with the shit of the society world! You don't have any right to condemn the Alleyboys. At least they have talent!"

Diane Cullum considered stepping forward and slapping her son across the mouth, but she had done that before and gotten a bleeding shin for it. Instead, she crossed to the omnicomp.

"This is the beginning of a new regime for you, Alistair. I warned you that if you got thrown out of one more school I would do something drastic, and I've done it."

She hastily typed in a code.

"What the hell was that?" the 'little' boy said. "What did you type in?"

The portal next to the Omnicomp began to glow, and Diane Cullum turned with interest as did Alistair and, even Gloria, to see who would appear in the center of its radiance.

They didn't have long to wait. The matter transporter worked in seconds, and a large, very large, man stepped out of the portal.

The mother, the son and the maid stared at the new arrival.

The Man was easily seven feet tall, and although he was formally dressed in a gray suit, white shirt and tie, you could see at once that he had the Herculean body of a man who had undergone the physical and pharmaceutical training that D.A.D. provided.

The Man was either bald or had shaved his head. His head was large and well shaped with a broad, heavy brow. Beneath that brow, deep set, were small eyes that were as sharp and bright as blue ingots. A strong hooked nose fell over a blond moustache that was turning gray and framed a mouth that was firm and strong with a full bottom lip that spoke of manly strength and virility.

The man's chin, however, competed with his piercing eyes, for your attention. It was large, strong, deeply cleft and curled in rounded globes around the cleft like an upside- down baby's bottom. The Man had a suitcase in his hand.

He stepped out of the portal and looked at each member of his audience with those eyes. When they fell on you, they saw you, saw into you and assessed you, all at once.

Having done this to Mrs. Cullum and Gloria, the Man turned his beams on Alistair and held the boy to his spot for fully fifteen seconds. Alistair, under the scrutiny of 'those eyes' couldn't muster enough will to adopt the usually surly pose he put on when confronted in any way. Instead, he simply pouted and fidgited a little.

The Man, cut away from the boy and turned to Mrs. Cullum. He put out a hand that had Mrs. Cullum, Gloria and Alistair staring once again. The hand was well-shaped, and so big that it looked like something sculpted by Michelangelo for David or Moses. It was a biblical, mythological hand that could just as easily weild a sledgehammer as a scalpel. It might have been the hand that reached out to Adam on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, that was its overall effect.

"My name is Steven Cutler," said a voice that was so low that you felt it even as you heard it.

Mrs. Cullum's mouth was slightly opened, but she rallied and reached out for the hand. Her reaction time was too slow, and Steven Cutler nodded his head and lowered his hand before Mrs.Cullum could make contact with it. She experienced a moment of almost wrenching regret; she realized that she had wanted to touch that hand.

Mrs. Cullum's mouth was so dry that when she first spoke, her words rasped and she had to clear her throat and start over. "I'm.....I'm Diane Cullum," she said, trying to impart her usually haughtiness, "this is my son, Alistair, who will be your charge."

Steven Cutler turned his gaze back to the boy, and the faintest of smiles curled his lips. Then he unzipped an outer section of his suitcase and took a large envelope from it. He handed it to Mrs. Cullum.

"You need to read all of this, Mrs. Cullum," the voice said, its tembre entered the walls and carpet of the room and you felt it under your feet. "D.A.D. wants you to completely understand both my role and my authority."

"Authority?" Mrs. Cullum said uneasily.

Steven Cutler looked at her and, again, his face was chiseled and gave away none of his feelings.

"That's right, ma'am! My authority!"Diane Cullum's fingers toyed with the seal of the envelope. If she opened it in this Man's presence, it would look as if she were not in control of the situation, so she simply nodded her head as though she already understood everything perfectly well and was, herself, in charge of it.

"You will be taking 'complete care' of Alistair," Mrs. Cullum 'informed' Steven Cutler, making her voice sound as if she were giving him his 'marching order.' "That includes everything: meals, recreation, socialization and education."

"What?!" Alistair barked. It was the first time he had spoken, and his voice sounded precisely like the yelping of a puppy!

Steven Cutler looked at Alistair, and the boy closed his mouth. The music globe in his hand gave a sudden blast of music, and Steven Cutler said, "Turn it off."

Alistair did something with the globe and the music got somewhat lower.

Something rippled across Steven Cutler's features and he took one giant step forward and suddenly the music globe was in his hand.

"I said 'Off,'" the voice rumbled, and suddenly the globe disappeared in a shower of fragments that fell like confetti from the Man's fist.

"Shit!" Alistair said, anger and misery mixing in his voice. "My fucking music globe! Hey, do you know how much that cost?"

Steven Cutler ignored the boy and turned to Diane Cullum. "I need to get to work now," he said. "I'll speak to you in a day or so."

"A day or so?" Diane Cullum said. What was this Man talking about. She would expect daily reports on her son.

Steven Cutler took a step forward and his hand took charge of Alistair's hand.

"Get off!" the boy said, but in the next instant he was jerked out of his place as Steven Cutler crossed the room to the door, taking Alistair unwillingly with him.

"Wait," Diane Cullum called after the retreating figure, "what do I call you?"

The Man turned at the doorway. Diane Cullum could see Alistair trying vainly to pry Steven Cutler's fingers from around his hand, "Mr. Cutler," the bass vibrated, and then he moved out of the room and the boy was whisked after him.

(to be continued)