Microstory 133: Alter Orenstein

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In order to understand how Alter Orenstein’s ability works, one would first have to understand the true nature of time. There is an infinite number of realities which exist simultaneously, each one based on a decision that any given free-thinking individual could possibly make. Let’s say that you are trying to decide whether you should place your foot on the next step in a staircase, or skip to the step above it. Before you make that decision, both of those possible realities exist at the same time, but as soon as you actually make the decision to skip the step, the reality where you didn’t skip the step is completely destroyed. And that’s only one simple example. You could skip two steps; you could fall down the stairs; you could even skip the step, but do so a half second later. Each one of those possibilities creates a new reality, but it will only last for a fraction of a second, which is why these are called microrealities. While you’re determining how you should proceed next on the staircase, your friend upstairs is wondering which sock to put on first, an insect on the screen door is deciding whether to crawl one more millimeter or stay in place and do nothing, and a child in another galaxy is choosing a piece of a candy from a bowl. This results in an incalculable number of simultaneous microrealities waiting to be adopted, as well as an incalculable number of microrealities collapsing in on their own irrelevance. Alter was born with the ability to perceive any and all possible futures. Fortunately, he was also born with natural precision, which allowed him to tease away the minute differences between realities, and only focus on the major potential changes. When looking into the future, the world appeared with a red tint, and so he named this RedTime. For whatever reason, he could only ever see 14 minutes and 73 seconds in the future. He would often use his ability to protect people from harm, warning them which decisions would be physically dangerous, and which were safe to make. He spent a lot of time working in the Special Projects department of Bellevue, since it was the most dangerous.