Microstory 2257: And He Paid It

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The money is in. Our bank account is so full, money is spilling out of it. I mean that in the most literal sense while still not talking about physical cash. Knowing that the funds would be in there by the end of the day, I set an autopayment for a number of various charities, so the full amount was only available for a few minutes before a chunk of it was gone. I’m laughing now, reading all of the replies and comments from readers who were under the impression that I was getting scammed. Oh, so many of you thought that it was never gonna happen; that I was just setting myself up for failure. We kept mentioning all the things we had to do at the bank, and whatever. You were convinced that it was going to come back to bite us in the ass. I suppose I can see where you could have guessed that. In an alternate reality, that’s what would happen; us becoming the victims of a long con. The thing is, though, even though I’m not telling you who commissioned me to give up my specimens, he’s not just some random guy who claimed to have a bunch of money. He’s fully on the books, and can’t run from me. The FBI, and other agencies, were fully aware that this was all happening, and they could have easily gone after him if he hadn’t been on the up and up. I know that a lot of scams work by telling you that they’ll give you a whole lot of money if you just give them a tiny bit up front, and the idea is that they’ll accept the tiny bit, and just run away with it, because to them, it was better than zero. But this guy didn’t ask me for a cent, and like I said, he’s a public figure with a life to lead. Taking my index and bone marrow probably won’t do much for him, especially since as I’ve been trying to tell everyone, they’re not the key to immortality. Risking going to prison by stealing them? That would have been even more absurd. He set the price, and he paid it. He paid it today, and now that business is done. I’m keeping enough of it for the three of us to live comfortably in this house, and to pay my security detail and publicist. Everything else should be spent on things that help the community, and maybe the world.

Microstory 2255: A Public Nuisance

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I’m still recovering, but I’m moving around the house just fine on my own. It hurts, but I’m used to pain, so it’s not the end of the world. This is Nick, by the way. It looks like full payment is going to be transferred into our joint bank account sooner rather than later. With that high of a sum, and the legal things that Kelly told you about before, there’s just some regulatory hurdles to jump through. It’s not like I’m depending on that money to get me through the week, so it’s fine. There are still a bunch of news people on our lawn. Some of them left, disappointed that they would never get an interview from any of us. Others have stuck around, either because they don’t believe us, and that we’ll reward their tenacity, or just to be annoying and disruptive. I’m told that there is nothing that we can do to get them to leave unless they place any of us in danger, or try to breach the walls of the house. Lawns are private property, but when it comes to public interest, camping out on them is some sort of gray area. Again, they can’t do whatever they want, but they can just sit or stand there, and they can keep coming back every day if they want. I suggested that we turn on the lawn sprinklers, but that’s apparently some form of assault and needless escalation. I guess there’s just nothing we can do, except wait them out. Fortunately, it’s nicer in here than out there. It’s only getting colder. There’s one silver lining to this. If the crowd gets to be too big, the police will step in, because then it officially becomes a public nuisance, and maybe even a safety hazard. If they were here to protest, or something, then that would be a lawful assembly, and protected under constitutional rights. But they’re not here together; they’re just here for the same reason—or rather, legally speaking, simply similar reasons. If things do escalate to that point, we may be entitled to some form of authoritative protection. It’s a security risk, not knowing if all those people have decent intentions. There could be a serial killer amongst them for all we know. Our security team is doing all they can, watching them at all times, and securing the perimeter. I’m just going to rest and relax, and hope that things don’t get worse. But just a reminder, the team is also taking note of everyone they see, matching identities, and placing everyone into a blacklist, so your only possible accomplishment could be to be intrusive. You’re not going to get the exclusive story, I can guarantee you that.

Microstory 2253: A Hope and a Dream

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Kelly here. Nick is getting his rest in the hospital. The surgeries went really well, and the buyer is pleased with the results. They’ve transported the specimens to some secret facility, and will be studying them without any input from us. We will never know what becomes of their research, unless someone comes out with a miracle cure in five years that can fix anything. Then we’ll be pretty sure that Nick had something to do with it. He’s on the road to recovery, and will be able to return home shortly. He thought that he may have to stay here for only a couple of days, but we’ll probably keep him for the rest of the week, just so he doesn’t have to deal with the stress of moving around. You’ve all been asking for this, so I suppose I ought to just say it. Nick has authorized me to reveal the amount of money that he received for these surgeries, and after you read it, you won’t question why he went through with it anymore. He’s not greedy, but he thinks that he’ll be able to do a lot of good with it, so he just couldn’t pass on it. We’re still not gonna tell you who we did business with. You may not have heard of him anyway. He’s not one of those uber-wealthy businessmen who dance on stage at their tech bro conferences, and buy newspapers just so they’ll say nice things about them. He’s not a recluse, but he’s discreet, and so are we. But like I said, I’m allowed to tell you how much he paid for Nick’s index and marrow. The final number is 24 million dollars. Yes, 24. Yes, million. It was 24 milly bucks. That’s an insane amount of money, to be paid out in a lump sum by the end of the month. The funny thing about it is that it’s entirely tax free. The buyer knows how to navigate the complexities of tax law, and avoided them by marking it down as an investment in research, pulling it from a particular type of account, and depositing it into another certain type of account that his people helped us set up. I obviously don’t understand it, but I’m sure it will become a matter of public record someday. For now, we have tens of millions of dollars to figure out what to do with. We’ll probably build a few hospitals, and even more free clinics. Might as well help people medically before the research pans out—or more likely—in place of it. He spent his money on a hope and a dream, but we’ll be able to translate that into immediate action. I can’t wait to get started.

Microstory 2078: Where I Live and Work

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I only worked first shift today, which was great, because it gave me time to get to the bank for my final new identity paperwork. If I wanna get paid, then I’m going to need an account, because they don’t do physical money here if they can help it. I didn’t come to this world with a known identity, which I assumed would be a major issue, but it’s not as bad as I figured. The government will give me a new one as long as they don’t find any reason to suspect that I’m changing to a new ID because I did bad things with my old one. Every major city has at least one Identity Services department that is capable of handling this. All I had to do was provide my fingerprints, multiple DNA samples, images from all angles, and video testimony. I have to tell them where I live, and where I work, and if either of these things changes, I’m required to alert them. They’re basically going to keep track of me to a higher degree than they would for someone who was born with a name, and kept it throughout their whole lives. If they find out that I’ve committed some crime in the past, though, all of this will be immediately revoked, and I’ll need to answer for any outstanding warrants. Of course, I don’t have any of those, which is why this special program is perfect for me. I don’t care if they know where I live and work, or that I have to check in with my social worker at least once a month. I’m glad that all of that is finally behind me. You’re looking at the official blog for the official resident of The United States of America, Nick Fisherman. Everything should be completed in enough time for my first deposit, and if not, I can wait a week, no big deal.

Microstory 2065: Not Gonna Hurt You

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Today I had a tour of the garden where I’ll be working starting next month. Or I should say, I hope I’ll be working there. She thought it was going to be okay that I don’t have any proof of citizenship, or a bank account, or a national ID number. Where I’m from, there’s no such thing as an NID. We have social security numbers that serve the same purpose, but that’s not really what the system was made for. I’m getting sidetracked again. The garden. It’s not the end of the world that I can’t prove I was born here, or that I was born at all, but there’s a process. She won’t be able to officially hire me until I get all that squared away. If you’ll remember, I was going to meet with a social worker earlier this month, but I never ended up doing that, because I secured this great place to live, and everything seemed to be okay without my new life. I’m getting over my second illness, but I’m still not there yet, so come Monday, I’ll finally be doing that. We’ll keep our distances from each other, and I’ll at least be wearing a mask. I spoke with him briefly on the phone, and he thinks that it will be okay. There is a proper way to enter this country, whether you want to come as a visitor, or stay as a citizen, but it’s not that difficult. It’s extremely difficult and painful in my version of the United States, but they see no reason to do it like that here. Where I’m from, people are terribly afraid that criminals will come in from foreign nations, but here’s the thing, there are criminals everywhere. You can commit a crime in the country you’re born in just as easily as a different one. No, that’s not true. It’s actually easier, because you don’t have to go somewhere first. How can we stop foreign criminals if we don’t just criminalize immigration itself? Uh, well what do we do about native criminals? It’s called law enforcement. Ever heard of it? It may begin with the border in some cases, but it’s not like it ends there. So stop freaking out, I’m not gonna hurt you. Can I be a citizen now? Everyone I’ve talked to about it says, yes, probably. Have a nice weekend!

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: May 2, 2398

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Mateo pulls up to Leona’s evening workplace, and puts it in park. She looks over at the building, but doesn’t get out of the car. He looks in the rearview mirror to make eye contact with Angela in the back, but she doesn’t know what the problem is either, if there is one. “Are you okay?” he asks.

“What?” Leona asks as if just realizing that there are other people around. “Oh. It’s fine.” She pulls her backpack from between her legs, and opens the door, struggling with it just a little bit, out of unrelated tension, not because of the door itself.

“You can talk to me, remember?”

“It’s fine,” Leona says, pretty dismissively. “I’m stressed, but I can’t elaborate.”

“Were I you,” Mateo reminds her.

“Yeah.” She walks away.

“She keeps doing that. She keeps not responding to that appropriately.”

“Yeah. We’ve noticed,” Angela reveals. She crawls up to the front.

He sighs. “We’re still going to the retail store, right?”

“I should say so.”

He puts the car back in gear, but remembers that he needs to map it out first, so he just holds on the brake, and finds it. Once he does, he pulls away, and heads for their destination. “Listen, I wanted to talk to you about something.”

“Go ahead,” Angela offers.

“I’ve been...kind of wanting a job. I’ve actually been needing it. No matter how much I make, it will barely make a dent in Marie and Heath’s bank account, but I still feel compelled to contribute something. I have to help in some way.”

“We thought you might be feeling that way,” Angela says.

“You’ve been talking about me?”

“Everyone talks about everyone else,” she says matter-of-factly.

“Okay.”

“We just think you need to keep a low profile.”

“Lower than where I already am?” he questions.

“Yes.”

“I was thinking about applying for a job at the library. That’s why I’m going to the store, to pick up a suit.”

“That’s what I’m going to do. Well, as a volunteer. Great minds think alike.”

He’s about to contend that he doesn’t have a great mind, but that’s the sort of thing his therapist would advise him not to say. He needs to learn to value himself. So he decides that it’s true. “Yes, exactly,” he tells her. That’s a big step for him. “Why do you get to keep yourself busy, and I don’t?”

“No one said you couldn’t keep busy. We have something else in mind for you.”

“How long are these conversations behind my back?”

“I think you’ll like it.”

“Oh?”

“You have a list of places you think might hold answers for us, like Easter Island, and Antarctica.”

“Yeah...?” She can’t really be going where it sounds like she’s going.

“We think you should check them out,” she suggests.

“Seriously? How is that a low profile?”

“I guess that’s not the right term. Anyway, they may be dead ends, but they may hold the key to everything. We just think someone should be responsible for trying.”

“You want me to go off alone?” he asks. “That seems weird. I mean, I’m fine doing it alone, but it’s weird that you would agree.”

“You wouldn’t be alone,” she promises. “Heath would be going with you.”

Microstory 1806: Winning at Life

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I won the lottery. I worked for nearly twenty-five years. It wasn’t backbreaking work, but it wasn’t fun or rewarding either, and it didn’t pay particularly well. I had always wanted to quit. I remember one class in college that required a lot of group discussion. We had a little trouble getting along, so a fellow student suggested we play some team-building games so we would have a better understanding of where our opponents were coming from. One of the questions was what you would do if you won the lottery. Everyone else had all these elaborate plans involving buying sports teams and owning yachts and private jets. I figured I would just take enough to live on, and donate the rest. They weren’t disappointed in this answer, but they wanted me to come up with the kinds of charities I was most interested in. I had to give them a thoughtful answer, and not just be lazy with it. They actually asked me to do homework that no one else had to do so they could follow my logic. I didn’t end up winning the millions of dollars that we talked about during that exercise, but I still held true to my original answer. I saved up enough money, and finally felt fine about being a little frivolous, so I began to spend a little on instant win scratchers. Twenty bucks approximately four times a year. I never exceeded my maximum, and I managed to win a few times, breaking even twice, and making a five dollar profit once. Though, that’s not really a fair assessment—is it—since I spent a lot of cash on losing tickets, so I didn’t truly make anything. Until I did. I finally won big, and it was under unique circumstances. It was because I decided to spend more than usual.

The grocery store where I would always buy the tickets started using a vending machine. You selected which game you wanted to play, inserted your money, and it would spit it out for you automatically. I know, in 2022, that’s not a big deal, but it was special back then. I found out later that mine was the first state to introduce these new machines. I had a little bit of extra cash on me, and it had been a bit longer than usual since the last time I played, so I decided to splurge. It sometimes makes me shiver to think that I almost didn’t do it. I was this close to just sticking to my normal technique. I won $150,000; I couldn’t believe it. I wanted to call my boss right then and tell him that I was going to go in another direction. That was what he had said to me years prior, and he only ultimately hired me because his first candidate turned out to be terrible at the job. I never forgave him for it, and I couldn’t wait to return the favor. I had to wait, though. Maybe I was mistaken. Maybe I was on a prank show. I had to be patient and careful. I took my ticket to the lottery offices, confirmed the win, and watched the numbers go up in my bank account. Only then did I quit my job. I wasn’t a millionaire, but I only spent about $1,000 a month, so it lasted me a decade, with a few mediocre investments, and a couple of luxuries just for me. The rest went to charity, as promised. I stopped playing the scratchers, and just enjoyed my hobbies, which were bowling and knitting. Boring, I know, but I liked them. Then the money started running out. It was bound to happen, and I had resigned myself to the fact that I was going to have to return to the workforce. Hopefully employers would agree with my life choice, and not hold it against me. On my way back from my first interview, I stopped by my store, and bought another ticket, spending thirty bucks like last time. Guess what? I won again; this time, for $250,000. Funny enough, I got the job, but I went in another direction.

Microstory 1788: Vulpeculiar

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I never wanted to get into gambling. My family has a history of gambling addiction, and I knew that I didn’t want to even look down that path, so I never put myself in that position. Unfortunately, gambling found me anyway, and I fell into it hard. Maybe if I hadn’t been so afraid of it, I could have learned restraint, but there’s no way to know now. I’m madly in love with it, and every time I lose, it only makes me want more, because there’s always a chance of turning things around. I’m actually not half-bad, now that I know the rules of my favorite games. I’ve come up with a system, and I know everyone says that, but most of the people who say it are thousands—or even hundreds of thousands—of dollars in debt, whereas I always keep myself in the black. I have a special savings account of money that I don’t touch. It doesn’t matter how close I get to losing everything else, that money is for food and shelter, and I’ve held firm on that. That doesn’t mean my life has been safe and happy. I’ve certainly had some problems, especially with sore losers who think that they’re entitled to live their own lives free from consequences. It’s hard to disabuse them of the idea that they won when they’re holding the scary end of a gun against my temple. I’ve recently become immersed in the shadier side of gambling, to which the authorities either turn a blind eye, or can’t even find. I’ve just been going deeper and deeper, playing games with higher and higher stakes. I’ve recently discovered the most mysterious and unusual game of them all. Bottom of the rabbit hole, I call it. The people who play it, though...they call it Vulpeculiar.

There’s a family game I remember playing as a kid called Catch Phrase. I don’t remember the rules, but it doesn’t matter, because it’s just the game disc for Vulpeculiar that reminds me of it. Only 121 people can play in the world, and the only time someone new can join is if someone quits while they’re in the black. This is hard to do, because if you’re in the red, you can’t choose to play. Only someone else can select you as an opponent. It’s a game of chance. You choose who you want to play against, and how much to bet. Then you squeeze the button. You either win, or you lose, and the only strategy is to decide to quit while you’re ahead. When you lose—and you will lose—if you can’t pay with money or collateral, you pay with your soul. You’ll be sucked into the disc, where you’re conscious, and totally at the mercy of the corporeal players. They can give you a chance to win back your freedom, or they can ignore your slot, and play against someone else. The guy who got me into this mess is probably best described as my frenemy. I guess he figured it would be easy to convince me to help him cheat. It’s a two-man job. If I hold the disc, and he squeezes the button, the game is confused about who the player is. If he loses, the round will be disqualified, and nothing will happen. But if he wins, it will pay out into our supposed joint account. Of course, he betrayed me, and never gave me access to those funds, so I’ve decided to screw him over too. I let go of the disc at the very last second, dooming him to losing after betting the sum of every player’s debt against the “dealer”, which he could never hope to pay. He’s sucked into the disc, and I realize I’m the last corporeal player left. It has to end here. The game is evil, and I’m the only one who can stop it. I bet the pot too. It’s over a billion dollars, so I assume that I’ll be sucked in, and leave no slots open for new players. I was wrong. Not only do I win, but the other 120 slots suddenly open up. I think I just killed everyone.

Microstory 1579: Any Password Will Do

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Prompt

I enter my bank password wrong, but the app still lets me sign in. I log out and try again, this time using a password that is not anywhere close to the right one. It lets me sign in this time too.

Botner

The trick: I don’t use the exact password. Instead I pick a random six-letter combination. It’s not easy to do, but there’s a little-known secret that lets me log in without making a mistake. All I have to do is get my phone to emit a strong “pattern” beep and lock pattern. If I follow this series of steps, I can log in to my bank account from my phone no matter what the password is. I started wondering how this works after I noticed this article from The Atlantic detailing how to trick Google into giving you the wrong password when you’re on an Android device. The author said that when he logged in, his bank account info and the password didn’t match. He was able to get into his account despite the fact that his password was wrong. It’s possible that this is an isolated incident. But some security experts are skeptical. “The notion that it’s really easy for hackers to break into my account if I type in this correct password...is dubious,” says Randy Abrams, security specialist.

Conclusion

I’m no programmer, but I have a decent idea what happened here. There’s a line of code somewhere in my bank’s software. It’s there to help people login to their accounts. When someone inputs their password, this line is supposed to ask whether it’s correct. If not, it will return false. But if the code itself just says true, then the password is always right, no matter what. As long as they put something in the box, it will let them in. This is a problem. This could allow anyone to access anyone else’s account, assuming I’m right, and it’s a global issue, rather than some kind of caching bug that’s only happening to my device. I open my laptop, and put in my mom’s username, since we use the same bank. I randomly strike a bunch of keys, and try to get into her account. It works. It is global, it has to be. But still, I’ll try one more thing. I call my mom, and ask her to try to login to my uncle’s account. She helped him set it up, so she has his information too. She puts in the wrong password, just like I did, but it doesn’t work. Whew! I guess they solved the problem already.  Hopefully I was the first and only person to notice the glitch, and no one had the chance to exploit it. I realize my session’s been terminated because the app has been logged in too long, and I never did get to check my balance, so I have to login yet again. Feeling shaky because of what might have been, I mess up my password once more, like an idiot. But it works. I know I messed it up, my hand slipped. What the hell is going on here? I have to get help, so I call customer service, and tell them what I know. “Yes, sir,” the representative says. “You have access to all accounts, as you should.” What?” This is even weirder than that time I drove down the highway going the wrong direction, and the cop just smiled and greeted me like it was normal. Something is happening to me, and even though it all seems good, it can’t be that easy.

Microstory 1265: Allen Tupper

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Allen Tupper wanted very little out of life. He saw it as a lack of entitlement, while his family saw it as a lack of ambition. He dropped out of college during his sophomore year, not because it was too hard, or because he was struggling with his grades, but just because he didn’t feel like he was getting much out of it. He didn’t have a thirst for knowledge, and he wasn’t much into the party scene, so higher education was a waste of his time, and a waste of parents’ money. At first, they were disappointed in his choices, but they came to realize the wisdom, and became thankful that he didn’t end up with mountains of student loan debt he would never be capable of paying off himself. His aunt owned a restaurant within walking distance of the house, so he started working there instead. He started out at the bottom, as a busser, but eventually made his way into the kitchen, where he became a line cook. He wasn’t astonishingly good at the work, but the menu wasn’t astonishingly complicated either, and he picked it up pretty quickly. His aunt was generous, and since the place was doing quite well, she kept it overstaffed, which afforded each worker more time off than most restaurants would be able to handle. Most of his coworkers didn’t take much time, since they weren’t getting paid to do it, but Allen didn’t care about the money. He worked to pay his bills, and as long as the number in his checking account stayed over zero, he didn’t feel the need to tire himself out. Instead, he took trips. He had this dream to go on a camping trip in every state in the country. Well, it wasn’t so much a dream as it was a long-term goal that his therapist suggested he come up with. She wanted him to worry a little more about the future, and not let himself get in a rut. It worked, because the only times he truly felt happy were when he was out there in nature, far from other people. There was one person he didn’t want to be apart from, however. Richard Parker had the exact same long-term goal, though he was a little less apathetic about it, and more enthusiastic. To make things even weirder, they had each already camped in the same states, so it was almost as if time were waiting for them to meet each other. Allen never believed in much, and he didn’t think anything happened for a reason. He couldn’t help but question his position, though. It was just too perfect, like they were already leading parallel lives, and just needed to notice each other. They exchanged information, and connected on social media upon returning home from Colorado. Richard was nine years younger, but it didn’t seem to bother him, so Allen decided to not let it bother him either. They took things slow, first moving to the same city to be closer to each other year-round, then moving in together, and finally marrying after a three year relationship. Unfortunately, they were only able to enjoy one year of marital bliss before their lives got really crazy.

Microstory 959: Smartphones

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As a writer, I need to be able to research anything and everything at a moment’s notice. The other day, I needed to better understand how it is that atoms hold together. This morning, a coworker described random bits of a film she saw part of, and I was able to find its name. Tomorrow, I might need to know how much a machinist gets paid, and if that’s an impossible question to answer, I need to know that instead. Several years ago, this kind of thing wasn’t possible unless I was near a computer. There was a brief time when you could Google things by sending them text messages, but that was pretty clunky. I was born too late to have spent a significant amount of time before internet research, but I did learn the concept in school, because that was all the teachers at the time understood. Most people—and I can’t imagine this to not be true—use their phones for social media and games, and maybe email. The younger generation uses it for the former two, and the older for the latter. The older still generally only use theirs for making calls. But smartphones do so much more. I recently downloaded an app that will keep and organize all my receipts, which is something I’ve wanted to do for a while, but never wanted to start at some random time of the year. I promise to actually start one day, unless I find something better. I’ll also remember to input all the necessary information for this app that tracks my car’s maintenance, and maybe try recording my heart rate. I have a bunch of casting apps, like Netflix, YouTube, YouTube TV, and Comedy Central (because YouTube TV can’t cut a deal with Viacom). I have Google Fit, Google Play, Google Translate, and all the other Googles. I have a few restaurant apps, a pool game, a couple news sources, my insurance, and my bank. About a quarter of my icons are just shortcuts to my writing resources; specialty dictionaries, FutureTimeline.net, and calculations and conversions. I use Google Drive extensively for my work, and probably should have written this entry on it, just because it would be apropos. I never go anywhere without my phone. I keep it docked in my car, not so I can text and drive, but so I can get right back to work as soon as I pull into my garage. I take it with me to the bathroom, and I keep it under my pillow at night so it can track my sleep cycles, and wake me up at the healthiest moment. I’ve always considered my phone to be a portal to the world, which is why I’ve only ever concerned myself with speed and performance. I don’t need it to come with a pretty stylus, or be made of gold, or release a sweet-smelling pheromone to cover up my farts (they invent this in seven years). It’s not a status symbol, and I don’t want to risk literally dropping a thousand dollars into the toilet. Wearables are the future, leaving the smartphone form factor in the dust, but until then, it’s one of the few material possessions I have that I actually care about.

Frenzy: Page Turner (Part XIV)

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“Uh, hi,” Ace says awkwardly, trying to sound upbeat. “Are you lost?”

“I was at Stonehenge,” the girl replies. “Are we in London now?”

“I was afraid of that,” I say.

“Well,” Ace begins. “No, we’re not in England.”

I go behind her and wave my arms around, trying to find the portal again. My assumption is that it’s gone, but it could also just be invisible. That sometimes happens, right?

“What are you trying to do?” Ace asks me.

“I’m trying to find a way to send her back.”

He sighs. “We can take a plane back to Stonehenge. It’ll be weird, and we’ll have to be clever to prevent her parents from freaking out on us, but we’ll get her back.

What? I think to myself. “Look at her camera,” I say to him. “And her clothes.” She doesn’t belong here.”

“Oh,” is all he says. Now he gets it. “Little...what’s your name?”

“Paige.” She starts tearing up, but it doesn’t look like she’s going to cry. She probably thinks we’ve kidnapped her. “Turner.”

Ace does his best to sound comforting and distant at the same time. “Paige, what’s the date?”

“October 8.”

“October 8...?”

“1971,” Paige completes her answer.

I pull him aside and speak softly so that she can’t hear, but I keep my eye on her. I’m worried that she’ll get the idea to be brave and try to run away from her captors. “What are we gonna do?”

“We have to go back and talk with your lawyer friend,” Ace suggests.

“What do you think he’s going to do about it?”

“Send her back home.”

“He can’t personally do that sort of thing, and I get the feeling that the Jenga trick isn’t going to work twice. That delegator guy was none too happy to see us too. Besides, you call Rutherford my friend, but I obviously didn’t know him. We can’t trust him.”

“So, what? We just keep her? Like a pet.”

“No, not—I mean...I don’t know. Maybe we can take her to child services, or whatever it’s called.”

“And tell them what? She’ll be going on about President Nixon, and Vietnam War hippie, and...pet rocks! They’ll put her in special needs classes, and try to fix her for believing it’s the 70s. She’ll never be safe, and she’ll never be happy.”

“Then apparently we’re the only ones who can handle this.”

“You mean raise her?”

“Do we have a choice?”

“Yeah, we went over other choices, and they have their problems, but this seems...wrong. She’s supposed to be decades older than us.”

“We went through the wrong gateway. We did this to her, so we have to help.”

Paige is looking between us with this face like she’s holding her breath. The tears have dried up, and suddenly, she snaps a photo of us.

“I don’t know that there’s any way to develop those here.”

“Because we’re in the future?” she asks, about half sure that she’s right.

“She figured it out,” Ace whispers, impressed.

“Maybe there’s hope for us yet.” I bend down and get to her level. “This is...” I start to tell her the year, but realize that I don’t know what that is. It’s not the 22nd century, and it’s not the 18th, but that doesn’t mean I know exactly when we are. We do know we went through the wrong gateway, so we have to figure out exactly what made it wrong, besides the fact that we brought with us another stowaway. “Ace, what year is this?”

“Why, it’s...” he stops himself as well, clearly realizing what I already have. He moves away from us and asks a random stranger the dumbest question they’ve probably ever heard. I see him close his eyes, trying to accept what’s happened. He returns to us. “October 15.”

“Yeah...?” I know it hasn’t just been a couple weeks.

“2023.”

One year. Not that bad, all things considered. It’s easier for me to accept than him because I’ve been through this before. In fact, I’m one step closer to getting back home, so it’s better for me. But it’s not better for Paige. “It’s October 15, 2023. You just traveled through time.”

“Like the Connecticut Yankee.”

I smile at the reference. “Yes, like that, except that you went forwards.”

“Is there any way to go back?” Paige asks. She doesn’t quite look like that’s what she would want.

“We could try, but we only know one other traveler, and he probably wouldn’t help us.”

“If it’s been fifty years, then my parents are probably dead.”

“It’s possible. It depends on how young they were. We could look for them.”

“No,” she says quickly. “If they don’t know I’m here, then I’m safe. I’m finally free of them.”

I stand up and look to Ace. We don’t know what to say. Theoretically, we would try to get more information out of a child who says something like this, but she’s right. She’s free of them, and however they were hurting her before, they can’t do it anymore. If she ends up wanting to tell us, she can do so at any time. Maybe it wasn’t the wrong gateway afterall. Maybe we were always supposed to bring her along with us. “You know, there’s an easy way to decide what we should do about our situation.”

“What might that be?” Ace asks, unconvinced.

“You tell us. You’ve already been through this day, right? I know you don’t remember, but what do you think? Subconsciously?”

“Well, it’s not that easy...” He trails off and stares into space.

“What? What do you see?”

“Nothing. This doesn’t feel familiar at all. I don’t know that I’ve ever been on this particular street, and I don’t recognize Paige.”

“What does that mean? That this is the first time around? That you’ll go back and do it over?”

“No, that doesn’t feel right either. Now that I think about it, yesterday wasn’t familiar either. I had no way of predicting the future.”

“Really? Has that ever happened before?”

Paige looks at us like we’re crazy. Even though she knows that she jumped to the future, she still doesn’t understand who we are, or what we’re talking about.

“No, never in my life. It all started the day you...”

I can guess what he’s about to say, “the day I arrived. You lost your ability when I showed up.” I start pacing a little bit, trying to work it out in my head, but ultimately thinking out loud. “Three years from now, Rutherford shows up and tells me I’m different. He says that he can’t use his own ability around me. Then I go back in time and meet you, only for you to experience the same thing.”

“What does that mean?”

“I’m like him. I’m one of you. I just...I’m just different.”

“You take away people’s power?”

“Exactly, or so it would seem. It hasn’t always seemed to work, though. I met a speedster in the future, and he didn’t seem at all affected by me.”

“Maybe you have to concentrate on doing it. Or maybe you have to concentrate on not doing it.”

“Maybe.”

We stand in silence for a long time before Paige breaks the ice. “I’m hungry.”

“We can get something to eat,” Ace replies. “I have some cash on me, which we’ll need, because I’ve been missing for a year and retrieving my identity might prove to be complicated.”

“So, what are we going to do?” I ask. “After finding food, that is.”

“I have no idea. I’ve never been so lost in my life. Ya know, I guess I do have that secret offshore bank account. They probably won’t ask questions about any missing persons case, but it will take some time to get my money back stateside.”

“That could come in handy.”

We start walking forwards with no real plan for where we might want to go. Paige snaps photos of the scenery, Ace actually looks like he might be a bit relieved to have shed his old life, and me? I think I’m gonna be okay. Jinx.

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Microstory 333: Ability to Save Money

Click here for a list of every step.
Freedom from Debt

Once you’ve gotten yourself out of debt, and the numbers on that spreadsheet turn from red to black, obviously the next step is increasing those numbers even more. You’re going to want to move as far away from zero as you can. Everybody loves money, and life is a constant fight to get as much as possible to spend on grand things. There’s nothing wrong with that, and I’m not saying you should never buy anything, but be careful. Along with money comes the risk of losing it. So many people end up back in the red because they have no problem with having more money than they know what to do with. They can be quite creative when it comes to spending, and only later realize they should have gone without some of those purchases. There is another side to this, so I don’t want you to think that I’m just getting onto people who spend too much. It’s also possible to gather so much money that you’re paranoid about it, and you end up hardly spending anything. This is harmful to the economy, and hurts us all. But that’s a story for another day...literally. Now I can’t personally tell you how to save money. I don’t know how to invest, or what kind of accounts to set up, or really even how interest works. The only advice I can give you is to either figure that out for yourself, or have enough money to pay someone else to do it for you. That second one, as long as you can trust the person you hire, will keep your money safe, and you’ll also be contributing to their money, which supports the economy. But again, I’m getting ahead of myself. The takeaway from all this is to be frugal and wise. Just because you have enough money for a giant mansion, doesn’t mean you should live in one. There’s a difference between money you have, and money you can afford to spend.

Economic Participation

Microstory 332: Freedom from Debt

Click here for a list of every step.
Steady Income

People of all classes have experienced debt. Sure, there are some rich people out there who have no clue what it’s like to owe money, but it’s also not reserved only for poor people. It’s harder for the poor, of course, because it’s more difficult for them to get to a place where they can pay it off. A few years back, my favorite radio station personalities were talking about debt and saving money. One of them said that, when he was worse off, he never saved money. If ever he came into extra cash, he would immediately spend it on whatever he owed. He had lapsed on, for example, his electricity bill, or had bought something on layaway. He said that you would think someone in that position would want to set money aside when they could, but that time never came until his life changed. I’ve always been good with money only because I don’t need much. I spend on food, television, and internet. I suffer from a binge eating disorder that digs into my wallet more than I would like, but most of my life exists on the web. From my perspective, I don’t need to go out and buy a new picture frame when I can just pull the image up on my computer. This has kept me in relatively good standing, even when I couldn’t find steady work. In fact, it was only recently that I started paying for things I didn’t literally have the money for in my bank account. I don’t use credit cards, I use my debit card. I did get lucky in a certain sense, however. I received a significant amount of scholarship money from my family’s church, so college was paid off before I thought to ask my parents about it. But I can’t tell you how good it feels to not be in debt, because I’ve yet to truly experience that. I hope you one day will, if you’ve not yet.

Ability to Save Money

The Advancement of Mateo Matic: April 8, 2032

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Mateo spent a few minutes just staring at Leona sleeping next to him. He felt responsible for turning her into a salmon; for forcing her into this life. But he was also grateful to always have someone with him. If they hadn’t fallen in love, it would have still been nice to have a partner.

She woke up quickly, possibly sensing his gaze. They looked at each other for a good long while, not saying a word. “I’ve been waiting to wake up next to you for a very long time.”

Mateo looked away. “Nothing happened between us last night.”

“I know that.” She sat up and leaned against the headboard. “This is gonna get awkward.”

“How so?”

“Well, I’m pretty sure you and I are together now. But our family is always going to be around, at least for a long time. We won’t be left alone very much. Even though our life will be saturated, they will have waited months to see us again. Doesn’t seem fair to take a break from them for sex when they don’t get to see us very often.”

“We’re alone now.”

“We’re not doing it this year. This is just the first conversation on the matter.”

“I just mean...I think they know that. They’ve been alive long enough to understand. They’re probably not here at the moment so that we would have some privacy. What we do with that time is up to us.”

Leona bit her lower lip in thought. “I think we should use that time to eat.”

“I agree.” Fittingly, there was a knock on the door and the sound of Theo on the other side. Mateo pulled on a shirt someone had laid out for him and opened the door. “Hey, kid. You look older.”

“I’m getting there.” He sported an evil smile. “Did we give you two enough time?”

Mateo looked back to Leona with a smirk. “What did I tell you?”

She ignored him. “Theo, have you been missing for two years?”

“Of course not, I’ve been back home. I spend the year there. I told them where you are. They kind of already knew what was going on, what with the fact that your older boyfriend only came ‘round once a year, if that. They’re not happy, but they get that you wanted to make a clean break.” He walked all the way inside and sat down on the table. “They just need a call from you every year.”

“I can do that, now that things have settled down.”

Theo looked up to Mateo. “Leona is going to take me to lunch since I’m too old to drive. Your mother wants to get to know you.”

“Go ahead,” Leona urged. “We have all of time and space.”

Mateo laughed. “Is that a reference?”

He met his mother outside by the pool where she suggested they go for a walk. There was still much to learn of each other, and the healing process was just beginning. “Where is your husband?”

“A couple of our friends dropped in, so they’re catching up, just like we are.”

“How do you know anyone?”

“They’re salmon. I believe you know one of them. He healed you once?”

“Ah, yes. Vearden, right?”

“That’s right. They both lived with us in in the 1740s, but we knew his partner, Saga from the jump before.”

“Speaking of non sequiturs, what am I supposed to call you?”

She smiled kindly. “You can call me whatever you want, but if you prefer a name, then it’s Aura.”

“And why is that? You used to be Lauren.”

“It changes each time we jump. Intellectually, I know that I used to go by that, but it’s very hard for me to answer to it. It would be like me trying to call you John Smith and expecting you to accept it. I don’t know why the powers that be did that to us. I’ve not heard of any other salmon who is forced to change their name.”

Mateo took a few beats. “It’s one thing to force us through time. It’s an entirely different invasion to alter our minds. What else have they done to our brains? When I was young, I skinned my knee while staying with you and you were so scared about being in trouble with Randall and Carol. Do you even remember that? Or did these assholes take that away from you, or make you think that you had a daughter. Did you have a daughter? Do I have a sister I don’t remember? We would never freaking know!” But he didn’t say freaking.

She didn’t ask him to calm down or stop cursing. She let him vent, and not just because she was his mother and understood what he needed at the moment, but also since she appeared to share his sentiments. A child is supposed to end up losing their parents, but to remove a child from a parents’ life; that was sacrilege.

“One day,” Mateo assured her, “they will pay for what they’ve done, not only to me, but to all the others. I don’t care what their motives are. If they’re powerful enough to push us around like this, surely there’s another way to accomplish their goals.”

“One might imagine,” Aura agreed.

They walked in silence for a few blocks.

“I would like to go back to Kansas. Leona says she wants to keep her family out of this, but I want them to be close enough if she ever changes her mind. You used to live in Kansas City. Do you think you would be interested in going back?”

“I would love that. I was wondering how to ask you.”

“It’s going to take us an entire day to get there. I’m sure you two have had time to establish fake identities in this time period, but it’s probably going to be impossible for us to purchase a plane ticket.”

“Oh, we are extremely rich,” Aura told him with quite a bit of pride. “The powers that be didn’t seem to have a problem with us investing in companies we knew would be successful in the future. We discovered that we had already opened an account at a bank, which we later had to actually do once we went back in time. We mostly did it to have some money while we were there; we never expected to end up in the 21st century. But now that we have,” she paused for effect, “we’re millionaire’s, Mateo.”

“If you didn’t know what your name was going to be until your jump, how do you still have control of that account?”

“That took some maneuvering, but we figured it out.” They had arrived back at their starting point. “Our family owns this motel, which is why we had no problem getting back to this room for your arrival. We also own an entire apartment complex in Kansas City, Missouri. We have been living there while we build our dream home in Mission Hills. It’s ready for you now, though. We’ll get back there by the end of the day.”

Mateo was more excited than he felt he should have been. He was raised by all three of his parents to be modest and humble. Nonetheless, he figured it would be pretty nice to have an entire mansion so that they could travel through time in peace.

That evening, they were back in Kansas and walking into their new home that was already fully furnished. Mateo and Leona were tired again, though, so they fell asleep once more. They really needed to find a way to get on some kind of legitimate schedule.

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