Microstory 2307: Happiness That You’re Looking

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I don’t have it all figured out yet. I don’t know where my life is headed. What I do know is that I’m going to move out of this giant house, and into something more my style. I’m going to keep it a secret, though. I may stay in the area, or I may leave, but I need to return to a life of anonymity, if only for a little while. At the end of this year, I’ll post one more entry onto this website, and then I’ll cease. I don’t have my own social media, and I’ll be severing my ties with the publicists. I’ve bequeathed the rights to an appropriate party for the novel, and the stage musical that Nick wrote. I won’t be telling you who they are, but perhaps they’ll reveal themselves later on. It will have nothing to do with me. The lawyer came by this morning to officialize what I already know. All of the specimen money comes to me. I’ll be continuing to donate it to various charities, then using what little is left to protect myself from scrutiny and exposure. I may end up going back to work, or I’ll just lead a modest life, in a modest town. To be clear, while I was closely associated with Nick and Dutch, I was not one of them. I have never traveled to other worlds, and I don’t have any powers. If you come after me, it will get you nowhere. Both of them are dead, and that is all over. They could have stayed here, and contributed so much more to the world, but you ruined it. Not all of you, of course, but enough. You made it so difficult to find peace, and I’m not going to keep that burden hanging from my neck. Neither of them would want that for me. Hmm. I guess I was wrong. I do have a pretty good idea where my life is headed. I’m just not going to tell all of you about it anymore. I sincerely hope that you all find the happiness that you’re looking for too.

Microstory 2306: Appreciation for Symmetry

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The end of the year is approaching, and I’m taking stock of my life. All of Nick and Dutch’s final arrangements have been completed. I’ve started the process of getting Nick’s novel published, and beginning to look into who can help me do something with the stage musical. I’m selling the house, and weighing my options when it comes to where I want to live next. I may stay in the Kansas City area, or I may not. One thing I’m still really not sure about is this site. Nick started it at the beginning of the year, and I have only ever taken over when he’s been incapacitated, but should that last forever, now that he can never come back? Do I truly have the right? Would he want me to keep going? He was a man with an appreciation for symmetry. I think ending on December 31 would be poetic in a way that he would like if he were here to do it himself. A lot of people don’t get to live on like this at all. If they die when they’re in the middle of something, it just ends. Well, maybe that’s not entirely true. If you have a job, a coworker probably takes over your accounts, and if you have young children, someone raises them for you...at least that’s the hope, anyway. Still, I think it’s time to start thinking about ending this. His story may not technically be over if his legacy moves on, but it still feels like the right thing to do. You’ll always be able to read and reread all 365 posts that will be up by then, as well as everything he wrote on social media. I’m certainly not going to shut the whole thing down. But it was never really mine. Perhaps I’ll start my own blog after this, which chronicles the things that I do next year, and beyond. Or it will too end in a year. I don’t have to decide anything right now, but the deadline is coming up soon, so let me know what you think.

Microstory 2305: Not Some Big Scam

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I finished this stage script, and that’s what I’m mostly concerned about now. The novel is great so far, but I think that has more to do with Nick’s own imaginative mind. The musical, on the other hand, is a tool. It’s one last gift from him to us, and according to these version logs, he’s been developing it pretty much the whole time he’s been here. There are certain people in the multiverse who can travel to other branes, as he calls them, but there’s no way to contact most of them out of the blue. Could you imagine how difficult that would be? I mean, none of us even knew that the bulk existed until he showed up. But this musical, it’s our one chance. It’s an opportunity to prove that he was right all along, and this was not some big scam. A man by the name of Joseph Jacobson has a magical multicolored coat, which allows him to cross these dimensional barriers. Normally, he goes wherever he wants, whenever he wants. But he can sort of be summoned if you please him with a performance that depicts his life. His story has evidently been altered and adapted so many times, it’s not a hundred percent accurate of what happened, but that’s apparently not an issue. He just wants it to be good, and worthy of his time. This script is the first step in that endeavor. With Nick gone, it will be up to us to put it into production. That’s the next chapter in my life. I’m gonna produce this play, and prove once and for all that Nick was right. So...who’s with me?

Microstory 2235: Constant Federal Supervision

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This is Nick. The FBI has developed a way for me to write my posts, and have them published on my website without actually having to access the internet myself, and risk giving away my current location. I’ve been asked not to place myself in that risk in other ways, such as describing where we’re living, or anything, but other than that, I don’t have to run anything by them. There’s no approval process here. It’s just me, printing a copy of what I want to say, and sending it to the agent who has access to the right web accounts. I will tell you that I’m granted brief, monitored, and heavily secured access to the internet to make sure it looks the way I want it, but other than that, we entertain ourselves with physical media, like books and DVDs. They’re not that interesting to me, but the other two don’t seem to have any issues with it. I’m getting back into writing, because I think this world needs more compelling stories, so that takes up a lot of my time. God knows there’s nothing else to do stuck in this safehouse at 221B Baker Street in foggy Londontown. Ha! Fooled you! That is a reference from my homeworld. It’s not really where we are, you chumps. Anyway, my new stories have given me an idea of how I might get back to my friends, but it’s going to take help from viewers like you. I’ll have the details later—I just remembered this cosmic trick yesterday—but basically, if I put on a production of a particular stage musical, there’s a chance that a universe-hopper will come and get me out of here. I know that sounds bizarre and random, but it does make sense once you know the full story. Again, these are only the early stages. I’m still in protective custody, so if I want to take it one step at a time—which I should—carving a new life out for myself without the need for constant federal supervision would be the first one. So don’t ask me when auditions are. It’s not time yet. There’s a strong chance that it wouldn’t even work. Joseph is very...critical of people’s interpretations. I’ll give you more information at a later date if I decide to move forward with this plan.

Microstory 1798: Flawed

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Ever since I was a child, I was really good at detecting what other people were doing wrong, and I had absolutely no trouble informing them of this at every opportunity. I perhaps developed a little more tact as I grew up, but not a whole lot. I was still a master at pissing people off, and pushing them away. It’s just...like, what’s the point of living your life if you’re not going to improve, ya know? Like when women lie about their age. They go the wrong way with it. I can see what you look like; giving me a surprising number is not going to change that. If you say that you’re 20 years old, but you’re 30, and you look 30, then not only am I not impressed, but I’m probably going to assume that you smoke, or something. Now, if you say that you’re 40, and you’re 30, and you look 30, then I’m going to assume you take good care of yourself. The idea is to appear younger, not to make everyone just think you’re younger. Some people were really appreciative of my advice. Just kidding, they always hated it, every single time. On the night I planned on proposing to my girlfriend, we went out to see a musical together. I actually like musicals, and I’m willing to suspend my disbelief that these people would suddenly break into choreographed song. That’s the medium, and I’m fine with it. My problem had to do with the particular show we saw. It was great on the whole, but one lyric sort of ruined the whole thing for me. One of the characters sang, not counting the homeless, how many tickets weren’t comped. Well, unless he’s suggesting that regular people were given free tickets, and homeless people had to pay, this line doesn’t make any sense. It doesn’t matter whether you include the homeless people in the math, or not, the number of people whose tickets weren’t comped should not change. Needless to say, she broke up with me, and I had to take the ring back to the store for a refund. The people who worked there all gave me this sad look. But I decided that if she wasn’t happy with my logic, she couldn’t be happy with me at all, so it actually worked out.

Anyway, her father was my boss at the time, and he didn’t like the way I treated her. I think she made some stuff up to make me look even worse than I was. He fired me, and I had to go on the hunt for something new. My friends all suggested that I translate my ability to see and point out flaws into something productive, like maybe being a film critic. I chose to be a house inspector, because the pay was better, and the work was steadier. I never really enjoyed it. I had a boss, and she pretty much left me alone, so I felt like an entrepreneur, but the work was still boring and monotonous. I kept thinking that there would be someone. Someone had to like what I had to say. But it never happened. Every first date was bad. Every party was awkward. I finally gave up, and just figured there was nothing I could do about it. Therapist after therapist tried to turn me into a better person, but they all failed. Well, that’s unfair. I’m the one who failed, and I would be a huge hypocrite if I wasn’t willing to admit that about myself. In the end, it’s probably for the best, anyone hypothetically interested in someone like me probably just didn’t understand what they were getting into, and it would eventually turn sour anyway. I wouldn’t want to subject someone to that. I made lots of money because I didn’t have any responsibilities, and I was destined to die with it, because I didn’t have any heirs. Like many in my position—or even outside of it—I decided to donate my savings to charity. Hopefully someone who actually needs it can get some use out of it.

Microstory 1668: Curtain Call

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Year after year, Joseph Jacobson showed up to the universe that deliberately invited him with his special summoning ritual. They put on a show that fictionalized his life. Actually, they put on multiple shows at the same time, and crowned the one he responded to the winner. Joseph was aware of what they were doing, and seemed to have no problem with it. When he returned a year later for another go around, the amount of time he had spent away was incongruous. It might have been a year for him as well, or longer. He once spent three days doing this, just going straight to the next one after the last, though that wasn’t too terribly much fun, because the point of the event was to listen to the tales of his travels while he wasn’t with them. He even once jumped to five years in the future from everyone’s perspective, before going back and filling in the years prior, which meant both that he knew their future, and they knew a little bit of his. The point is that he always showed up, without fail. Until one year. It was the largest contest yet, with hundreds of productions around the world hoping to go down in history as the best. None of them won, though, which was odd. By then, they were pretty well versed in his life’s story, and the chances of not one of them being good enough seemed unlikely. Did something happen to him? Was he indisposed? That didn’t make much sense. He was a time traveler in the truest sense of the term. The only thing that could have ever stopped him from not eventually getting their message was death, and maybe not even then, because a younger version of him could simply appear instead. They didn’t even think he could die anyway. He certainly never gave anybody that impression. He had already been alive for millennia upon millennia.

As far as they knew, he was immortal, but they didn’t know everything. Perhaps there was some weakness he quite deliberately withheld from them. That would be completely understandable. But the idea that no one won the contest? That sounded far-fetched. He always acted like he quite enjoyed traveling to a world that knew all about him. He was famous in some circles, but since he moved around so much—and rarely visited the same place twice—there weren’t a lot of others that revered him so much, and continued to show it. The summoning ritual was always a choice. It was a way for people to contact him, not force him to show up at their whims. He never had any obligation to come if he didn’t want to, so if this was his way of saying he was over it, it seemed like an odd occasion. What had changed since then? Well, that was probably the point. He could tell them all the stories he liked, but they never really knew what it was like to be Joseph Jacobson. That wasn’t even suggesting he liked to lie. Maybe he left out enough about himself that they didn’t really know him at all, and there was no explaining his absence, because there was no explaining him, full stop. The reigning theory after everyone went home was that Joseph simply didn’t want to tell his stories anymore, but a close second was that they were so used to putting on the productions that there was nothing interesting about them anymore. People put a lot of effort into analyzing past winners, and trying to come up with the perfect way to perform to maximize their chances. After carefully going over the shows from the total failure year, they realized just how similar they were to each other. Either Joseph couldn’t pick the best, or the fun was gone, and it didn’t matter anymore. The world tried again the next year, but they were much more rigorous about weeding duplicate performances out. Still, Joseph didn’t show, so they tried one more time, but only with one single great performance, and then they just gave up. He never appeared again, and the people chose to move on. Maybe that was his intention all along, to somehow teach them to be completely self-sufficient. Or maybe something else had happened that most people on this planet didn’t know anything about.

Microstory 1618: The Annual Coat Drive

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This is a nice little non-depressing story about a lovely version of Earth, which isn’t perfect, but is defined primarily by a wholesome and fun annual event that just about everyone loves. But first, you need some background. There are only a few people throughout the bulkverse who are able to travel across it. Even if you include the people who managed to get themselves on board one of the machines, like The Crossover or The Prototype, the number is strikingly low. The number goes up when you include The Transit Army, and the Westfall experiencers, but it’s still nothing compared to the number of people throughout all of existence. Only a handful of people can do it through other means. Joseph Jacobson is one of these people. He was born to a mutant time traveler named Jacob, and a mother whose nature may be more complicated than anyone can understand, though there’s proof of nothing. Jacob sired twelve sons, and one daughter, and all of them have abilities. They all possess some form of temporal manipulation, but Jacob was drawn to powerful women, so they all also have other abilities. None of them is as impressive as Joseph, though. Before any of this, one of those things capable of crossing the bulkverse suffered a major engine failure that could have resulted in tragedy were it not for the quick-thinking of its crew. Still, there were side effects, and one of these was a simple coat that someone happened to leave in engineering while they were working to stop the catastrophe. This coat was imbued with the ability to travel the bulkverse, but not for just anyone. The only people who could use it were those who had already done it at least once, and even then, they could only go to places they had been before. It’s an amazing piece of cloth, but it’s not all that useful to most. Joseph is different. With it, he can go anywhere he wants, and no one is sure what it is that makes him so special, because none of his siblings can do it, not even the one with whom he shares a mother. The two phoenixes in the family can technically travel as well, but they have to die first, and navigation is sketchy at best. Joseph is the one true bulk traveler, and it makes all of his brothers extremely jealous. For some, it makes them murtherous. That is a story for another time, though.

If these names and situations sound slightly familiar, that’s because you’ve probably heard the story. This family is important to the collective history of the bulkverse, so a lot of people are aware of it. Some see it as part of their religion, or someone else’s, while others know it as fiction. Either way, the story itself is powerful. If the right people produce the right interpretation of the story of Joseph and his Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, it will actually summon him to their location. From there, they can make requests to him. He’s not obliged to follow through, of course but you can always ask. Finding the right way to tell Joseph’s story is difficult, and requires clear intent. Lots of people have put on a show, and nothing has happened, continuing to allow them to believe that it’s all made up. If you know that it’s a possibility that Joseph will appear in the flesh, then you can try to make it happen. Again, it’s not guaranteed, but it’s kind of the only way to get a hold of him. One thing I never mentioned before is that hypnopediaverse has a history of people randomly finding themselves trapped there from elsewhere. I don’t know why, and it’s not that important. The point is that these people once came together, put on Joseph’s show, and were able to summon him to their location, so he could ferry them back to their respective homes. Two of these people told their own story when they returned, and surprisingly, people believed them. Not only that, but they wanted to recreate the magic. So they produced their own version of the musical, and found success. Joseph appeared, and regaled them with stories about his adventures across the bulkverse. Every year since then, the people of that universe have repeated the experiment, not just with one show, but with many. Multiple productions are shown simultaneously around the world, each one hoping to be the one that attracts Joseph Jacobson to them. Of course, once he does show up, Joseph allows his tales to be broadcast worldwide, but the cast and crew that won the contest that year will end up with bragging rights, global recognition, and other ancillary prizes. The true reward comes from the lessons that Joseph unwittingly teaches. Understanding what goes on in other universes has given this one the perspective it needed to make sure it didn’t make any of the same mistakes. They learned to better preserve their planet, and were justifiably ignored by the Ochivari, and the Darning Wars.

Microstory 1354: Division (Part 1)

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Magnate Representative: Thank you all for coming in. We have some exciting things lined up for the next few years, and we wanted to get an idea of how some of our customers feel about what we’ve done so far. A little disclaimer, we chose you lot randomly. You have not necessarily spent more money on us than others. My department, in fact, does not have access to your purchase history. All we know is that you have bought at least one Magnate product or service. We also do not have access to customer complaints, or other routes for feedback. This is an entirely separate department. If you have voiced a concern about us in the past, however, and do not feel that the issue was resolved, please feel free to repeat it here. Does everyone understand?

Magnate Customers: [in unison] Yes.

Magnate Representative: Okay, to start us off, is everyone here aware that we sell products and services in the ten categories listed on this chart?

Magnate Customer 1: What exactly does Smart Solutions mean?

Magnate Representative: That is something we are going to talk about today. We’ve been picking up on some confusion regarding what that means, and would appreciate your input. Smart Solutions is our newest and broadest division. It encompasses everything from the materianet to renewable energy, to 3-D printing, to internet based cities.

Magnate Customer 2: Materianet?

Magnate Representative: It’s also known as the tangiblenet. We’re talkin’ non-screen internet-connected devices, like a refrigerator that tells you what you’ve run out of when you’re at the store, or even just a streaming security camera. Up until 2017, all divisions in this company have involved us getting into preexisting markets. We didn’t invent furniture, or toys, or cars. Smart Solutions is all about the future. Much of what that division does is determining what that future looks like, because right now, no one really knows.

Magnate Customer 3: Hm. Since it is so broad, maybe that is the best term for it, even if it causes a little confusion.

Magnate Customer 4: Maybe you could focus on marketing each department, since people already know what 3-D printing is, and all those other things. You can still use a term for the whole division, but that doesn’t have to be very client-facing.

Magnate Representative: Okay, okay. These are actually really good ideas. We’ve always advertised from the division down, but it doesn’t have to be like that. Let me take this note here.

Magnate Customer 5: Does the toy division include adult toys?

Magnate Representative: I’m sorry?

Magnate Customer 5: The toy division? Is it just for kids?

Magnate Representative: Uh...it is, sir. We do not have an adult toy department. All our products are very family-friendly.

Magnate Customer 5: Well, I bought an axe from you guys last month. Would you call that family-friendly?

Magnate Representative: I suppose not. There’s a safety issue when it comes to some of our products, like tools and vehicles. The problem with adult toys is we wouldn’t be able to keep kids from even seeing that they exist, and they’re just not part of our business strategy.

Magnate Customer 3: Speaking of which, what’s this I hear about the toy division being shut down?

Magnate Representative: I have heard those rumors too. That comes from an unfortunately leaked email from a year ago that discusses our long-term plans. With the increasing demand for virtual entertainment, physical toys may not have a place in the future. Nothing has been decided, and won’t be for at least another five years; probably longer.

Magnate Customer 3: Well, my kid is still gonna be a kid in five years.

Magnate Representative: Again, we don’t know what we’re going to do. We’re just going to listen to the market, and give our customers what they want. If enough people are like you, we will continue to provide them with fun, wholesome entertainment, like our line of dress-up kits.

Magnate Customer 5: I thought your whole thing was knowing what the future holds. You called it Smart Solutions.

Magnate Representative: That’s true, I said that, but no amount of predicting can be a hundred percent accurate. We still have to be able to adapt to unforeseen changes. But what I’m hearing is that you want us to be a little more confident in our decisions. Is that a fair assessment?

Magnate Customer 5: I don’t really know what that means, but I guess.

Magnate Representative: Okay, we can work on that. Let’s circle back to Smart Solutions later. I would like to ask you a few questions about your feelings on musical instruments. It is our least profitable division, but as you may know, it carries sentimental value to Mr. Burke, because of his grandfather. What are your thoughts on that?

[To be continued...]

Microstory 1243: Vendelin Blackbourne

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Time travelers are constantly going back in time and making changes. Even if they go back only to watch a Broadway musical they weren’t alive to see when it was running, they create a new timeline. This is happening on the quantum level, so no amount of restraint can stop the new branch from taking shape. And when it does, almost no one is aware of the change. Because it’s not really a change at all. Everyone living in the new timeline never lived in the old one, so there’s simply nothing for them to remember. There are a few people with the ability to recall events from alternate realities, but these are still not truly memories; just implanted knowledge. Vendelin Blackbourne was possibly an exception to this rule, though it’s impossible to tell, because his experience with nonlinear time seems to have only ever happened once. Before the incident, his life was a mess. He always thought of himself as a good person, but he was a less skilled web designer than he had hoped, and every job that passed him by pushed him further to the extreme. It started out small. He was just looking for a little company. Everything was consensual, and no one got hurt. But now he was in the dark web, and he couldn’t have predicted how far things would get. Before he knew it, he was actively helping build unindexed websites for extremely illegal activity. He wasn’t selling drugs, or other blackmarket items—and he kept his business firmly away from child exploitation—nor was he involved in the system security and anonymity. He just made the sites themselves look pretty, which was what he was meant to be doing for reputable companies. The FBI found him out, and locked him up. The prison he was sent to was actually not the worst place he had ever lived, especially since he hadn’t directly harmed anyone, but it wasn’t great, and his reputation took the worst hit. He didn’t understand how everything unraveled so quickly. College was only two years ago. But time, as he knew it, was a lot more complicated than that.

A time traveler who Vendelin had never met, and who probably didn’t know he ever existed, went back to before his parents were born, and altered history. By killing Adolf Hitler years before his time, he created a ripple effect that changed more about the future than anyone could fathom. Vendelin was both a victim of these circumstances, and a survivor. Even though the events resulted in him never having been born, here he was, in this new reality. Somehow. No one had any memory of him, so he figured that this was his chance at a fresh start, because all of his past mistakes had been erased. He found himself standing outside, next to what was once his work detail. He was dressed like all the other prisoners assigned to clean up the yard refuse, but the guards had no clue who he was. Since he wasn’t in the system, they had no choice but to assume it was some ludicrous prank, and let him go. He quickly learned that he wasn’t just not in the prison system; he wasn’t in any system. He didn’t have a birth certificate, or a driver’s license, or a social security number. It was like what would happen if the angels in It’s a Wonderful Life just forgot to put George Bailey back to where he belonged, but kept him alive. He was nobody, which would have been frightening for some, but to him, it was a major relief. Vendelin became a day laborer, and saved his money by living modestly. He didn’t commit any crimes, besides not being a real citizen of the country, and he didn’t attract any attention. Most people who realize time travel is real end up encountering other people with powers or patterns, but not Vendelin. He just lived out the rest of his days as a normal person. He never told anyone his secret, or tried to figure out what happened. He considered this new life a gift, and not only was it a risk to try to give the gift back, but it wasn’t likely to work anyway, so what would be the point in investigating? He was truly a better person now, and that was all he ever asked for.