Future Imperfect E-Book

Adrian Tanase

• Herausgeber: Subspace Transmissions Publishing
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: Non-Linear Time
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022

Seitenzahl: 536

Beschreibung

Alan is a citizen of Earth, with a corporate job, a girlfriend, and an expensive apartment located in one of the tall glass towers of New York, Manhattan. When he breaks into a big corporation's servers and steals 1,250,000 Galactic Credits, he's judged and confined to live in a penal colony, 4,300 light-years away from Earth, for the rest of his life. It was the year 4210, and the Colony was a tiny part of the capital of Kalara IV, Alandra.

At first, the Colony is a strange thing to Alan, but he starts going to a local board game club where he makes new friends to fill up his time. Here, he ends up meeting a well-known drug dealer from Alandra who soon becomes his best friend. He introduces Alan, among a variety of relaxing herbs from many planets to a special liquid called Substance L, which allows you to "feel" other alternate timelines at the level of your mind and your other senses.

Managing to get hold of a device that can project him physically in the alternate timelines that he starts to travel in, Alan starts to enjoy himself with each jump out of curiosity, but soon he realizes that there's more to it than meets the eye. At some point, he makes a mistake that can ripple through the alternate timelines and also into his main timeline. How will he fix his mistake and who is going to help him do so? Join Alan K. Wattson in his adventures through timelines, in this first of a trilogy series.

Leseprobe

Future Imperfect

Adrian Tanase

ISBN: 978-3-98756-451-2

© 2022 Adrian Tanase

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Author: Adrian TanaseCover : Adrian Tanase Publisher : Adrian Tanase

www.adriantanase.ro

Chapters

1. The outcast haven 2. An ordinary day 3. Jeeves 4. Substance L 5. Somewhere, someday 6. The device 7. One different perspective 8. The watchers 9. Future incursions 10. The turning point 11. The plot thickens 12. Conscience 13. Temporal operatives 14. The generator 15. Between time lines 16. They meet again 17. The two men 18. Potential becomes a reality 19. The laboratory 20. Unexpected reality 21. A necessary jump 22. The freighter 23. The circle is complete

Chapter 1

The Outcast Haven

From the window of his small apartment, located on the second floor of the red brick building, he could see the street, paved with grey stones. He sometimes spent minutes looking at the building across the street, which had a few small shops at the ground floor, open most of the time. At night, the neon advertisement for the hotel across the street created a minor stir, usually attracting enough customers to keep the hotel sign lit. His current whereabouts was the capital on Kalara IV, inside a Penal Colony seen by many people as a refuge for outlaws. Strange people from half the sector were being deported here for various reasons by their local governments, who wanted to get rid of them quickly and make sure they were somewhere far away enough that they would never be heard from again. They were not criminals, but merely people who had committed "criminal activities that disrupted the general flow of life" on large planets that usually boasted with their technological progress and enlightened ways of their society, and Alan happened to be one of them. On Earth he had been considered one of the ordinary citizens that used to enjoy the simple things in life, like eating his breakfast, having a regular job, and casual walks in the park, but he was different enough from the others to be considered an outcast. He worked for a fairly large corporation as a chip programmer, and that earned him no more and no less than 12,500 credits each month.

One day, a government agent discovered that someone had hacked into one of the corporation's servers, which was in charge of producing chipsets for small spacecraft, in a cyber attack. Alan had managed to steal 1,250,000 credits in just 15 minutes, nothing more, nothing less. While stealing money was a common criminal activity on Earth, punishable by two years in prison and the return of funds up to the last credit, unauthorized access to corporate servers was considered a serious violation of the law, because schematics could be always sold for big money. When he was caught, three weeks after his fraudulently action, he had just over half of the money he had stolen left. Following the trial, the Government representative decided that he was "a very bad example for the society" and, because people like him were usually repeat offenders, they decided to impose one of their usual punishments, in this case, deportation to one of the deportee colonies. That's how Alan ended up on Kalara IV, about 4,300 light years away, somewhere in the far reaches of the Alpha Centauri system.

At first, obviously the news of his relocation was not pleasant. The general atmosphere of the colony on the outskirts of Alandra, the capital of Kalara IV, the rather cramped living space he wasn't used to, the strange people from so many planets were creating a very uneven mix on the streets, and all made Alan feel like he was in a place where he didn't belong. But after a few months in his small apartment he'd been assigned, he began to get used to the idea of living in Alandra. The original document that had expelled Alan clearly stated, "It is not possible to return to Earth during your present lifetime. A salary of 2,100 galactic credits is granted each month by the Earth government for basic needs until death. All decisions concerning the inmate will be transferred to the government of Alandra, who will have full rights to act on his behalf."

And that was that. He packed his few belongings and boarded one of the galactic transport ships that were heading for Kalara IV, with 2 government representatives watching him until he boarded the ship. And since Alan had no family left, but only a few friends who were scattered on planets close to Earth, whom he hardly ever saw anyway, his arrival on a planet far from everything he knew was in a way his ticket to a new life.

At first, everything was so different in Alandra from Manhattan. He stayed indoors most of the time, with occasional outings to the restaurant around the corner where he'd have lunch, maybe a short walk through the streets between the neighboring blocks, and then back home. The deportation colony on Kalara IV was "sponsored" by many planets, mainly through the "allowance" it gave to the inmates, so it had no need for its own local economy. The only profitable things in the Colony of Alandra were the occasional old blocks turned into hotels and small shops of all kinds run by outcasts that generated enough profit for the owners to afford a slightly better life on Kalara IV, adding a little more to the allowance they had been deported with.

The colony comprised a total of almost 12,000 inhabitants and the rest of Alandra completed the figure with another 7 million citizens. The rest of the planet was made up of smaller but growing cities, linked together by land lines and ultra-fast planetary transport, and what was left was all vegetation, mountains, and a few desertic areas. The planet could be explored at any time with a personal transporter, but no one in the Colony had one, and renting one was too expensive for most outcastes anyway, plus the leave outside the Colony was only 31 days a year.

The Colony was actually a one-way destination for most of the people who lived there, as they were not allowed to leave the planet, and in most cases they stayed there until they died. Very rarely, some were pardoned and managed to relocate to Alandra City, and sometimes one or two outlaws managed to escape from the planet using a transport ship that was occasionaly passing through the Colony, which then docked at the Planetary Ring, a rather large construct built in the planetary orbit, but they were usually caught fairly quickly by Alandra's police, who operated almost to the borders of their solar systems, having small but very fast and well-equipped ships. So the outlaws were brought back very quickly, and, as punishment, their monthly allowance was reduced.

Thus, most of the outlaws learned to make their stay in Alandra’s Colony more pleasant, limiting themselves to "escapes" from time to time within Alandra, which was actually a very beautiful city, using the 31 days of leave they were allowed per year.

As for Alan, he had recently managed to make a few friends among the regulars of the restaurant where he usually ate and among those who frequented a board games club located at the ground floor of a hotel not far from the building where he lived. This way, he no longer complained of loneliness, even though he was mostly alone at home.

The apartment he had been given was simple and chic, a spacious one bedroom apartment on the second floor of a very old building in the Colony. It consisted of a single room divided into a few areas, painted in white and decorated with colourful floral motifs drawn on the walls, two sofas where he could sleep in, a desk with a terminal from which he could access most of the news channels of the inhabited planets of Alpha Centauri and where he could read his messages, his own bathroom, a small kitchen, and a table he had bought from one of the wooden junk shops, at which he sat down from time to time to write.

For a while he had been writing everything that came into his head, and hoped that one day he would have enough material to publish a few novels with an independent publisher in Alandra or wherever else he could. The idea of becoming famous someday had been with him for some time, and he tried to improve his writing style by constant practice, but mostly by reading whatever old fiction books he could get his hands on in the few book shops in the Colony, where he could sometimes be seen reading for minutes between the high shelves full of books. He liked to think that being an independent and amateur writer, would chase away the loneliness that came in the early morning moments when he woke up and realized he was no longer in his massive glass-windowed New York apartment.

He had recently bought a parrot, which he had named Remi. They were inseparable friends and he spent a lot of time talking to him about whatever came to mind or simply watching him play and wander around his cage and find all sorts of ways to interact with the toys he brought him. The little animal warmed his heart and made him look forward to better days, even though the days seemed to repeat themselves for a while, in a monotonous way.

He felt as if the life he was experiencing now wasn't his decision, even though he'd gone through a period where he blamed himself almost every day for the reckless act he'd done, in which he'd lost everything he held dearest on Earth: his girlfriend, the apartment in the tall glass block in Manhattan he'd taken on a bunch of loans, and his job. But after the first few months in the Colony, he was slowly getting used to his new lifestyle and began to build little taboos, which he did every day, to anchor himself more in the reality around him.

He began to walk around more and more and find places where he could feel free, under Alandra's benevolent sun, exploring the streets, the little shops located at the ground floor of many old buildings, the restaurants, and the few sprawling parks. His favorite spot lately was a bench behind an old blue-painted brick block, where he could see a small part of Alandra through the electrified wire fence, in one of the suburbs on the edge of the Colony. He usually sat and stared into the distance telling himself that he was actually right there, free in the sun, even though he lived in an area where the buildings didn't look quite what he would have wished for, and the people weren't quite what he was used to. Nevertheless, he still tried to live every day as a normal man, simply living his existence, and following his passions until he forgot everything around him.

This "chance" through which he had been isolated made him feel, more and more lately, that nothing was merely pure chance and that the Colony was "somehow" his ticket to freedom: that freedom through which one could evolve, given the current extreme conditions in which he found himself, every day. And that made Alan wish for a new sun every day, in the outcast Colony, never wishing for more, and never wishing for less. He’d have to get accustomed to his current life and dream for the better, hoping that one day, he’d be free under the Alandran sun, enjoying a cup of coffee, in one of the coffeeshops, outside the electrified fence of the Colony.

Chapter 2

An Ordinary Day

This morning, the sky was blue, with a few white clouds hovering around the sun, and the general atmosphere of the Colony was relaxed. Passers-by, dressed in their usual colourful clothes, passed by from time to time, some going out maybe just to buy a packet of cigarettes, others to eat at one of the cheap restaurants in the area where they lived, and a few to find places to spend their days with friends. Alan was awake and was dressing up to go downstairs for the usual breakfast at Jimmie's. He'd picked up his fun-colored clothes he'd found at a so-called trendy clothing store four blocks away from his apartment and dressed up quickly. The fresh morning air that entered the room, in which you could feel the scent of spices, probably from a nearby restaurant, wakened Remi, who had already begun to chirp in his own unique way as he frantically tidied his feathers.

As Alan prepared to leave the house, he noticed an envelope that had been slipped under the door, probably by Mr. Bill Fisher. He reached out and took it. Written in small letters, on it was his name and, printed in clear galactic standard language, his Colony address. He looked on the other side of the envelope, but no sender was clearly printed, only a few stamps with weird characters on it. The seal didn't clearly say where it came from. He dropped it on the table that was in front of the couch and exited the apartment quietly not to disturb the neighbours, descended the stairs in a hurry. He greeted Mr. Bill, the building manager and walked outside. Out on the streets, the air was warm and breezy, and the wind was blowing slowly, scattering the papers on the street that were cleaned up once in a while.

In Alandra, a fairly advanced society, the people had no worries of any kind. The rules still existed, but only technically, on paper as the bureaucratic system was somehow preserved, but it was just a formality. The landscape Alan saw every day was made up of people who came from a plethora of planets, who sometimes gave him hurried glances and sometimes passed quickly onto the neighbouring pavement. Most of the people that lived in the dark outcast area were treating him like a stranger, due to the fact that they had come from worlds away and had not yet managed to integrate well enough in Alandra. But that didn't happen in the place where Alan played board games. That's where people either wanted company or were looking for new friends. This was Alan's destination of late, and since he had discovered the board games club, he was there every day.

He walked quietly down the street with his hands in his pockets and his hat pulled down over his head. When he came across the street, he turned left. He passed a few shops that were just opening and reached the restaurant where he ate every morning.

Inside the usual smell and warmth welcomed him. He put his hat and mottled coat with blue-brown rhombus shapes in one of the old wooden trunks and sat down at a table. He looked around and didn't see any familiar faces. Somewhere, in a corner, a stunted outcast was hastily eating a hot soup, probably chicken and cream, with paprika. The food in the colony was pretty good, even if the restaurants looked like something out of a 1950s American movie.

The restaurant where he ate every morning was keeping the old-fashioned style, and also had a bar, with an elongated table, high stools, tables dressed in a textile that looked a lot like his favorite lozenge coat.

His breakfast was short and hearty. He usually ate fried eggs, bacon, a roast sausage, and toast, made from fresh produce that came from Alandra, but today he'd also ordered a coffee and a couple of butter and chocolate croissants, which were really delicious, and it didn't bother him at all that he'd spent a few extra credits than usual. He savored every bite and didn't even have time to look out the window at passers-by as he usually did. For a while now he'd had a big appetite, because he'd been making rather long trips around the colony, trying to explore new streets every day that he hadn't been on before.

It's so beautiful today in Alandra, this morning, though it was a bit cold, he thought to himself. The man who had brought him breakfast came to his table.

"Was it to your liking, Alan?"

Alan looked at him and smiled.

"It was even better than I expected. Thank you. What is that, six credits?"

"Exactly 6. Thank you," said the waiter.

"Say hello to Jim for me. I think he's pretty busy right now in the kitchen, this early in the morning, making breakfast for everyone who hasn't come yet," Alan said. "I have to get to the club early, I promised the boys," he said as he got up and grabbed his coat. "Maybe you can come sometime, it's fun and you'll have something to occupy your time with."

"Maybe I'll come, I've heard of it recently too. Have a good day, Alan," the waiter told him as he cleared the table.

He looked at his watch: it was already 10 AM. He left the restaurant, turned right and stopped to light a cigarette. He loved the way he felt in the synthetic cashmere trousers he had got, at some expense, from a Navaria salesman. Outside, settlers of all kinds were walking about, a few shop owners were gently sweeping up the papers and leaves that had fallen on the pavement in front of their shops probably the night before, and some of his neighbours who had just woken up had come out to buy their newspaper and the usual packet of cigarettes.

He walked for five minutes and turned left again. The building in which the board games club was located was built in the old style, of bricks and cement, with apartments stretching several floors up to the third floor, with marquees on almost every level. It was an old building and not very tall, with a dark red roof. Alan always liked to imagine how that neighborhood was looking when the Colony was not even in the plans of the Mayor of Alandra. The facade was similar to the old buildings usually found in London, and had an interesting allure, being combined with the architecture of a world where the modern with massive and useless decorations were the norm. The club was right on the ground floor and had an entrance directly from the street; windows as high as the whole wall, thick and reinforced, a large solid wooden door with a door knob of emerald green, slightly faded painted metal.

Once inside he greeted the few players at the table near the entrance. He put his coat on the coat rack next to the door and walked over to the table where he spotted a few of his friends, who were probably already on their third game.

"Did I miss something?" he said nonchalantly.

"We started without you this morning. I knew you'd show up, but none of us had the patience," one of his friends replied casually. He had yellowish to brown hair that looked like a crest on his head stretched up a little.

"No problem, I'll just take a seat and watch the game unfold," Alan said, in a slightly distracted tone this morning.

The board game club was for him the most attractive spot in the whole area where he lived. There were other places he frequented, such as a couple of old-style cafes with dark brown imitation of woodwork, where he walked with his laptop to type and admire passers-by of all kinds through the ivory semi-transparent windows. Most of the cafes were located on the ground floor, with one exception that he knew of, where the location was somewhere on the fourth floor, with an exit to a terrace directly on the roof of the building. As far as he had had time to see, the Colony was in fact a motley collection of people and buildings that had been restored over a long time and now resembled hundreds of places on dozens of planets. The mix of culture that existed on Alandra had also played a positive role. There were even a couple of Japanese Buddhist temples, housed in old wooden houses, where he rarely passed to light a sandalwood-scented stick and quiet his mind.

At some point, the door of the place opens and a young blond man enters the room. He was quite tall in stature, lean but well-built. He was wearing a white t-shirt, having a brown leather girdle he wore around his torso and his blue jeans and light suede shoes.

"Jeeves!" One of the players at the table he was at yelled. "Come sit with us!"

The young man waved to the few at the table by the door and made his way to their table.

To Alan it seemed as if he knew him from somewhere but he couldn't figure out where from. Jeeves seemed like the kind of person who would fit easily into any group of people, always cheerful, as Alan saw him now, for the first time.

"Jeeves, this is Alan, our gaming buddy we hang out with around here," one of the players at Alan's table immediately introduced Jeeves to him. "You know each other?"

"Umm ... apparently not. I don't think we've met before. Nice to meet you," Jeeves said with a welcoming face, extending his hand.

"... and I ... also ..." Alan replied.

"Have a seat at the table with us, Jeeves," Alan said. "They started without me, but now there are two of them not playing, and that may make them hurry with their first game. The first game is always a warm-up anyway," Alan joked and looked out of the corner of his eye at the focused players to see if they would agree to skip the first game.

"Yeah ... the first game is the least important. Especially when you're not playing," retorted a young man at the table, who was always playing with the plastic game pieces, making noises as he banged them together. "Wait your turn, or better yet, go smoke a cigarette with Jeeves while we finish the first game. Either way, we'll be waiting for you two."

Alan looked questioningly at Jeeves who met his gaze smiling and nodded.

Jeeves had come to Kalara almost ten years before Alan was deported. As he was a very sociable man he had managed to make a lot of friends and also in Alandra he had met his future wife, whom he was with now. His wife looked incredible, like something out of a modeling magazine, blonde like him, thin and tall, with beautiful rounded shapes, cute and funny and always dressed like she was 27 years old. Alan's friends from the board games club had seen her a few times, because she insisted on coming to play with them.

Alan and Jeeves, ended up somewhere behind the club, where there was a massive wooden door, through which you could exit onto a small terrace behind the club, which was surrounded by tall residential buildings. The place was about 4 by 5 metres, surrounded by a tall wooden slatted fence, with flowers placed in planters about head height. Everywhere you looked up, the buildings behind stood at least six stories high, giving you an interesting sense of seclusion and protection.

Jeeves took out his packet of flavoured cigarettes, and Alan lit a Sauria tobacco cigarette, which had a hint of cinnamon, one of the kind found in a few places in the Colony.

"Don't you want one from me? They're from Aluria, and the relaxing effect helps you start your day off right," Jeeves said, handing him the cardboard packet, thin almost like paper, on which was written something in a language Alan didn't understand.

"No, thank you. I'll stick to my cinnamon sticks for now. I found them in a few places, one of them even has a Saurian patron," Alan said relaxedly, puffing on his cigarette, as if the discussion didn't particularly interest him. In fact, when he came to the board game place, he almost became a different man, a man who forgot about absolutely everything, whatever problem he had that day.

"I haven't seen you around here before. Do you come here often?" Jeeves asked him.

"You know, I discovered this place recently," Alan replied, trying to create an opening in the conversation. "I quite like it, especially since I don't have much to do in Alandra ... in the Colony actually ... and through playing I feel like I'm getting out of the sometimes too many shades of the everyday life here," Alan said with a tactical sniff.

"That's what I think. Even though I live in Alandra, this place has always inspired me," Jeeves continued the conversation. "You say you haven't found something to do here yet? What about hobbies? How do you fill your time besides the occasional board game? I don't ask what you're doing in the Colony, as everyone has their own story..."

"Well ... I usually stay home, and... when I have nothing to do, I write. I write whatever comes into my head. Usually things I've already thought of that I'd like to put in a book," Alan said with a bit of modesty.

"Ah! Now I get it! So, a writer, in a colony of outcasts, somewhere at the end of the galaxy. That's not a bad thing, Alan," said Jeeves cheerfully. And, with a look as if he had told him a secret, in a slightly lower voice, he added. "If you'd like a little inspiration, just a little over and above what you already have, in what you're doing, I could help you, you know..."

Alan sticks a hand in the pocket of his jeans and blows the smoke gently to one side.

"Something to help me with what I do?" he said. "Maybe just if it would help me focus better, it wouldn't be bad," he added.

"Even better," Jeeves said with a face Alan hadn't expected. "Something to inspire you even more. Something that ... Something that will actually change the way you look at things. Something special," Jeeves added, with a little twinkle in his eye.

Alan stopped puffing and began to look curiously at his new friend. Was Jeeves offering him something far more than he had on Alandra, or did it just seem that way to him? It seemed to him that here at the end of the galaxy, there wasn't much to do, especially in the Colony, other than enjoy the solitude and be as bored as possible.

"Something special you say? What is it, anyway?" asked Alan after a while. "You know, you made me curious."

Jeeves took a light drag from his flavored cigarette and blew the smoke the other way.

"Well, there's no rush, we'll talk about it later, now let's get back to the boardroom. They're definitely waiting for us and you usually know that players get pretty cranky when they're waiting," Jeeves said as he tossed half of his cigarette away.

Alan nodded. The players were waiting for them, indeed. They had just finished the game and were rearranging the pieces. In the room were all sorts of games that could be borrowed, from the classic ones with plastic pieces, playing cards, dice and just a cardboard map to the modern, holographic ones, where you could select and move holographic objects on different levels or access the game menus and settings wearing special gloves made of a material that interacted with the game. Of course, most of the games were quite used, some of them quite old, but the guys didn't mind at all.

Alan often liked to come in the evening, when the sun was setting. He would sit back on the small terrace and sometimes dipped his pipe with tobacco dried buds from a native Alandra herbal blend that helped him relax more. The blue sky furrowed by small puffy clouds, the birds that had not yet gone to sleep and flew in the sky drawing large circles and the quiet atmosphere on the back terrace always cheered him up. After relaxing enough with his pipe, he went inside and occupied a table from where he could see the street, the holographic game players and write.

One of the players motioned to Alan to choose his piece. Today they were playing something classic and very old; the cardboard from which the map of the game was made was visibly damaged, the cards were used and the pieces were not all there, so those that were missing were replaced with some pieces taken from another game. Jeeves and Alan were seated next to each other on the chairs they had found free; now there were five of them.

The game began and the players became more and more engrossed in the game. The clatter of the dice on the wooden table, the occasional cards laid on the table forming interesting patterns, the pieces moved around the sections drawn on the map, all made it a ritual that Alan enjoyed very much; every now and then a player too absorbed in the game would seemingly strike a certain rhythm with the plastic piece he was playing with on the table, being interrupted from his thoughts after a good few seconds by the others and urged to play. Alan was left thinking about what Jeeves had told him. "Something that might inspire him more ... something that would change the way he looks at things ... that's already too much," he thought. He looked at Jeeves, and Jeeves smiled broadly at him, his eyes a pure blue as he moved his pieces forward into the other's territory, as if reading his mind. His blond hair gave him a shaggy look even though he was nearly fourty. "Whatever that might be, I've made a new friend today," Alan thought. And that counts for a lot with lonely me. Inspired or not, I have a feeling I'll be seeing Jeeves quite often in the near future. At least in this godforsaken place," he said to himself, with a little relief. He knew that his parrot, Remi, the board gamers, and a few other guys he'd run into at Jimmie's were his only "real" friends, in a place where you had virtually nowhere else to go.

Alan's thoughts were interrupted by Jeeves.

"Okay, second place. We're done. That's enough for me for one day. I've got a transport to make to zone 14A and I should be there in about 25 minutes. It's quittin' time for you guys. I don't like to run and be last minute."

"There you go, win and go," one of the fellow riders replied frowning a bit. "That's what you always do when you're ahead."

"Exactly. Quit while you're ahead. I think that's what they say around here..." Jeeves joked and got up from the table.

"Alan, we're sticking with what we agreed? " he said looking at Alan questioningly.

Alan looked at him and said, "Yes, of course."

"Let's go outside to my personal transporter. I'll give you a business card with my contact number, so you're won't need something to write."

Alan got up and followed Jeeves, who greeted the boys and walked out.

Outside, Jeeves' transporter, a Tensor Mark 2, also equipped for short interplanetary flights, waited for them, levitating gently, in front of the building. Alan began to study it in awe. He had heard of this new model, but he had never had the opportunity to see one so close up.

Jeeves opened the door, reached for his wallet, looked around a bit and gave Alan a business card.

On the card, it just said: "Jeeves. Call me when you need me. [phone]."

"Is this your number?" Alan said. "Okay, when can I call you then?"

"When you'll want to, doesn't it say so on the card?" he said, and smiled. "If I can't make it, I'll tell you then, and we'll set a new date we can meet." Jeeves climbed into the carrier, and closed the window on his left halfway.

"See you, Alan. Nice to meet you, buddy." He started the almost silent engine and lifted slowly, faster and faster into the air, disappearing gently over the tall buildings behind the club.

Alan carefully sliped Jeeves' business card into his wallet and stepped back inside the board games club. The boys were engrossed in the game as usual as they had already started a new one.

"I'm not playing anymore today, I'm going to the bar to get a coffee and I'm not staying long anyway..."

Alan sometimes liked to sit around when he got to the club, and this time he felt the need for a coffee, somewhere secluded, at a table behind the players. It felt like home here, and the games sometimes demanded too much of his attention, so from time to time he'd retreat to the area where the occasional meal was eaten, or drink consumed, he'd look at the old posters on the walls, daydreaming. This helped him a lot with his writing, because by relaxing his mind, he got many interesting ideas that could form the idea of many short stories. Today, however, he was left thinking about his new friend with the blonde hair in a ponytail.

"I find him very interesting," he thought, taking a sip of the warm, light brown drink. "I have a feeling we're quite a match. He doesn't talk much and seems to understand what to say and when to say it. He's my kind of friend," Alan thought. The thought that Jeeves had something that might make him more inspired to write, or even more than that, something that would change his perspective, and especially the fact that he hadn't actually told him what it was, intrigued him. On Alandra, he felt like he was on a permanent vacation anyway, and he was loving it lately. He remained dreaming of flavored cigarettes and a world he could enter via a mechanical pencil and perhaps a pipe stuffed with flavored tobacco buds. The afternoon was falling lightly over the Colony, and everything was as it had always been, plain and dull. Only occasionally, in places like these, people still had activities. Things and time moved slowly as always, and the colonists felt like just another one of those days, was passing in the usual rhythm, where all they had to do was to simply exist in a place where time seemed to stand still for everyone.

Chapter 3

Jeeves

Alan was home. That morning he got up early, grabbed his light running shoes, a t-shirt, a pair of shorts, and went for a run. Mr. Bill Fisher, the manager of the building where he lived which was his best friend, who always greeted him when he entered or left the building was still asleep. The sun had just risen with an eerie yellow-orange light that reflected on the streets and Alan could say that the fresh morning air with the smell of trees coming from the woods near Alandra was perfect for jogging.

Alan had come to the conclusion that he had to make the most of anything that could be done in the Colony, especially those things that didn't require credits. He would hop on the public transporters and sometimes walk to the farthest corners of the Colony, looking out the window at the old buildings. He especially liked those in the industrial area, where the old architecture was the norm, many of the massive buildings now being disused. He walked in the company of people of all kinds, who usually used public transport. He then liked to walk through the few but extensive parks, seeing the streets of the former old town from which Alandra had been formed, most of which still existed in the Colony, and spending many hours at the board games club.

Today, however, he had decided to jog for a little while. He knew that running would clear his mind, and he felt it would always give him the peace of mind that he needed. His loneliness, his greatest enemy since he arrived on Kalara IV, was slowly beginning to turn into his greatest ally, and the confined space he had been living in, as he liked to call it since he arrived here, was beginning to transform with each passing day into a quiet, clean, and calm place.

He ran for almost 30 minutes, checking his bracelet every now and then to see his pulse and how many steps he had taken. It was a bargain-priced gadget he'd found in one of the old electronics stores near him. He picked it up for twenty-five galactic credits, but he knew that it was worth a lot more. Still, he liked it because it gave him a lot of stats to check. In almost no time he was back to his building. When he reached the front, he found the door to the front of the building was ajar. Mr. Bill Fisher was awake.

"Alan! You're so early, I don't know how you do it. I only just got up 10 minutes ago and it's such a lovely day today!" greeted him in his characteristic style.

"I just went out for a run, Mr. Bill," Alan said. "I wanted to tell you, I've got a friend coming over soon, please tell him where to come up," Alan continued, tying the laces on one of his shoes, leaning against one of the stairs.

"A friend you say. This must be something new! It's good, friends always chase away loneliness. Of course, I'll tell him where you live," Bill said in a friendly voice.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I really must go upstairs. There's quite a lot of mess at my place and I want to do a bit of cleaning," Alan told him and began to hurry up the stairs.

When he reached the apartment, he was greeted by Remi, who looked at him strangely, unaccustomed to him being so early in the morning, as he paced back and forth in his cage. The sheer curtains were gently moved from time to time by the wind outside, and the sun streamed in through the window, casting bright yellow patches over the cleanly painted walls. His terminal was on and the screen showed the app where he usually read his messages, left open from last night. He sat down tactically, and pulled out his wallet: Jeeves' business card was where he'd put it. He took it out and typed his contact number into the communication app on the terminal. He waited. After a good few moments, the sound indicating a connection came clear. Alan was surprised that he could reach Jeeves at this hour, and a childlike joy came over him.

"Alan? Is that you?" His blond hair, a little ravenous, appeared on Alan's terminal. "Jesus, it's 8:20 in the morning. What are you doing at this hour?" Jeeves tried to apologize for his sleepy, slightly drowsy face.

"Sorry to wake you at this hour. I thought you were already awake..."

"No, I'm off today, I just have an afternoon trip to the Colony. What are you doing? Are you home?"

"Yes. I went out for a little run. I wanted to see if you could stop by today." Alan paused, then added. "Whenever you're ready, no rush..."

Jeeves looked at him with a friendly smile.

"Ah, sure. Since you woke me up," Jeeves said, looking to his left, probably out the window, "and it's so beautiful outside, I'll pay you a visit. I think I can be there in an hour, if I hurry a bit. We’ll see each other, okay?" smiled Jeeves and held out his hand to close the communication.

The image on the terminal disappeared. Alan stood for a few moments in front of the screen, slightly surprised at the state his conversation with Jeeves had put him in. "I haven't used the video communicator since I arrived in Alandra," he thought.

He had waited a few days to call Jeeves since he had met him. He didn't want to bother him, but he figured if he delayed calling him any longer, Jeeves might get upset. A friendship should be nurtured, Alan thought, but it shouldn't be tainted by meeting too often either. Remi seemed to approve, chirping happily to himself as he played with the few objects Alan had taken for him to keep him from getting bored.

The anticipation was killing Alan. He'd been thinking about Jeeves' words ever since he'd met him that sunny day behind the board game club. "Something to inspire you more. Something that can actually change the way you look at things. Something special." He went into the bathroom and began to shave. He glanced at himself in the mirror from time to time, thinking about the million things that filled his mind today. The anticipation of meeting Jeeves made him a little nervous, and he literally didn't expect it, and that apparently brought even more excitement as time went on.

After he finished shaving, he started cleaning up the room, making sure to put everything in its place, and started looking at his soft couch. The kind of low coffee table in front of it wasn't well positioned. He spent at least two minutes arranging it at the optimal distance so that the couch sitter wouldn't feel the table was too close to be uncomfortable, but also not too far away so that he'd have to lie down reaching for his drink. Alan was the kind of man who was a perfectionist. And that was sometimes too much. But more often than not, he reaped the rewards of being so thorough and methodical. At some point, after cleaning most of the room, he realized he had nothing else to do. He stretched out on the couch and began watching a few news channels on his terminal. The news was, as usual, short and descriptive. This morning on Alandra, several officials from two star systems close to Kalara's solar system were visiting on a diplomatic mission. Then some scientists presented a new nanomaterial that retained heat without letting it pass through. The usual news, Alan thought. He started flicking through the channels available to him on the terminal, curious to see what else there was to watch. The temperature in Alandra for the day was 22 degrees Celsius, and the weather was mild and sunny. At one point, he put down the remote, leaned back and closed his eyes. He had so many things on his mind, running slowly in so many directions. In a few minutes, he fell asleep. Dreams blended reality with fictional things and random people, and Alan wandered through a world of wonder and magic.

After a while, he was awakened by the door alarm. The small display by the door showed a blond man staring out the door, wearing a red cap, his usual blue jeans, and his leather bag wrapped around his torso with a leather strap from the shoulder down. It was Jeeves. It was clear he had slept for more than half an hour.

"Just a second … " Alan quickly went into the bathroom and quickly fixed his hair, splashing a little water on his face at the same time. He hurried to the door and pressed the button that opened it. Jeeves was standing in front of him, displaying a wide smile.

"Hey ... I’m here!", Jeeves greeted him." I hope I didn't take too long."

"Come in," Alan said greeting him, visibly happy and a little sleepy. “I had fallen asleep on the couch until you arrived.”

Jeeves entered and began to study the room.

"You seem to like a clean apartment," Jeeves said detachedly.

"Sit down," Alan invited him, as he took some magazines from the couch and placed them on the low wooden table in front of him. "Would you like me to make you some coffee? I could use one to wake me up. I also have some soda water in the fridge if you'd like."

"Yes of course, a coffee and … some soda if you have it. After my herbal cigarettes I always feel like a fresh drink," Jeeves said, taking off the bag hanging over his shoulder. He took out his rolling papers, and his box of herbs, which contained a tobacco-like mixture of an orange and green leafy plant. He tactically started rolling while studying Alan's living room. It looked to him like the one he'd stayed in when he'd come to Alandra, only a little smaller and simpler. A perfect studio for an artist, he thought.

Alan poured coffee into two large coffee mugs and had already prepared two glasses of juice, from a local fruit. He placed them on a tray and carefully brought them to the table, then pulled out a soft small chair so he could sit at the table next to the sofa.

"Your coffee smells really good," Jeeves complimented him. "Is it really coffee, or something similar of the herbal varieties on Alandra?"

"It's really coffee, if you can believe it. The guy I buy from told me it's right off a colony near us. I don't know how he gets it, but I really don't feel any difference between this and what I used to drink back there on Earth. Anyway, coffee has spread to so many worlds that it's become quite common," he adds, taking a sip from his white mug.

"Ah, you lived on Earth. Got it. I heard it's a very beautiful planet, with nice cities and transport ships from half the sector," Jeeves said excitedly. As if to convince himself, he took the still-hot mug and sipped.

"Holy Jesus! But this is good stuff. Let me know where you got it from, I want a couple of pounds."

"Maybe I'll tell you," Alan joked, "but all things come at a price..."

"Sure, I understand. 30g of herbs for that kind of coffee, that's fair, I think," Jeeves replied with his wide smile that all his friends had already gotten used to. "My wife will be delighted."

Jeeves was such a sociable man that even people who didn't know him couldn't help but make friends with him within a few minutes, even if they weren't talking.

"What have you got there?" Alan asked curiously, seeing Jeeves' already rolled long cigarette.

"Today I'm going to introduce you to my magical world. These are my aromatic herbs from worlds near Alandra. I will introduce you to a world where everything around you takes on a playful and magical meaning," Jeeves said with a mysterious face. "But until I do the second cigarette, why not start on the first? This is in the honor of my first visit to my friend Alan's house." Alan smiled and looked at him curiously as he lit his cigarette.

"Anyway if I don't like them, don't get mad at me, my coffee and tobacco are good enough to chase away the boredom, the only friends who have not betrayed me yet," Alan said.

Jeeves nodded in agreement and handed him his unlit cigarette.

"You light it!" he said. "I'll roll the second one. It's my morning taboo, but I didn't have the time for it today."

Alan lit the rolled cigarette in the thin white paper, through which could be seen a blend of orange and green colours. Immediately, a strong aromatic fragrance filled the room. Jeeves made himself more comfortable on the couch. He took two more short puffs curiously, and handed Jeeves his cigarette back.

"Take a drag, we have enough for five days here, if we need to," Jeeves chuckled. "How does it feel like? Any impressions?"

"Well, what can I say, very aromatic, tastes like fruit, like ... strawberries, and … but there's no way it's going to kick in right away, is there?" Alan asked with a face of a kid that had just tried chocolate for the first time, a little amused.

"It takes effect pretty quickly," Jeeves laughed. "Tell me what you think."

Alan relaxed a bit more and started smiling.

"The effect is ... very relaxing I might say. I feel like I'm in a space where thoughts are made to be playful, and everything seems to move a little slower than usual. It's like being in an old library full of books, where my only purpose is to find interesting books. It doesn't take any of my attention, I actually feel like it gives me more, and … your cap looks like a colorful mushroom now that it's got my attention!" Alan said and they both burst out laughing.

"I knew you'd like it, I knew it," Jeeves said smiling, still looking tactical, as he rolled the second cigarette. "You can smoke as many as you like, they're more for the taste. The relaxation and alertness stays the same from the first to the 5th cigarette if you want, so you can smoke for pleasure's sake, the effect kicks in after a few puffs anyway and it stays that way for about six hours."

"I think these are going to help me a lot with my writing, and most of it, with my daydreaming," Alan said, looking very relaxed and lost on the multi-coloured painting depicting a tree. "And now I feel like talking for hours," he said amused.

"You can now see who inspired me to make so many friends in Alandra. Well, besides my natural desire to make friends, of course," Jeeves said, chuckling.

"Now I understand what you were saying about something that would inspire me, or change my idea of the way things are," Alan said, his tone so relaxed as if he were whispering, surprised at his own tone of voice.

Jeeves looked up, stared at him for a few seconds, but said nothing. He had just finished rolling his second cigarette. He placed it tactically on the table, reached into his little bag that he usually wore over his shoulder, around his torso, and gently pulled out a small, white, semi-opaque plastic small bottle with a pink rubber head.

"That's already something else," he said.

Alan stared at the small bottle in wonder. He was so relaxed that even his normal reactions of wonder were no longer unfolding in real time.

"What's this?" he asked puzzled.

"Something to inspire you, something to change your idea of the way things are," Jeeves said simply, just as he had told him in the courtyard outside the board games building.

Alan looked at Jeeves surprised.

"Is that... something else?"

"Yes. That's what I was telling you about at the club. It's called Substance L," Jeeves said, sounding simple and mystical. "Where it takes you, no other can. And believe me, I've tried it a few times myself, but to be honest, it's not for me. A pragmatic man can only use it so many times. I think it's made actually for artists, for creative people, or for the people who want to experience "something else" than what's in front of our eyes."

Alan's face changed, becoming questioning, perhaps with a slight hint of concern. But the way Jeeves had introduced it to him made him somehow want to know more.

"So ... what does it actually do? I hope it's not some silly thing you can't get away with afterwards, is it?"

"Aaaa, it's nothing like that," Jeeves said with a cheerful air. "It has absolutely no side-effects, if you can believe that. Not the slightest trace of addiction. Once it's out of your body, after about three hours or so, you're back to your original state, and your body doesn't ask for more. The receptors in the body for the substance don't multiply like, say, with tobacco. It's a substance that interacts with a few receptors in our body, and mostly with the pineal gland."

As Jeeves was trying to explain its effects, Alan became more curious. He reached over and took the small vial in his hand and checked it all over. The bottle was grey, made of some sort of hard plastic, semi-opaque, with a rubbery cap to drip through, and a colourless liquid of about 10g.

"It's a mystical substance, if you ask me," Jeeves continued. "It can take you where you can never normally be. And it doesn't compare to traditional manufactured substances, which show you more of your Universe. Don't you even want to know what it does? You didn't even ask," Jeeves said relaxedly, tactically lighting his second rolled cigarette, and lying with his back on the couch.

Alan looked at him expectantly.

"You can tell me, since you got me so curious."

Jeeves paused for a few seconds then it began talking seriously.

"Substance L, as it's called among consumers, is a rather 'illegal' substance in many worlds, I might say, including New Caledonia where I'm from, and basically...it takes you into possible futures, if future had a plural."

"What do you mean...possible futures? There's practically no word for it, you just said so yourself. The future is only one," Alan mumbled, his voice a little strange.

Jeeves puffed on his aromatic cigarette and handed it to him, as if nothing and no one could bother him for a few hours. He sank into Alan's inviting couch and looked over at the terminal in the corner of the room where some news from Alandra were playing, with the sound turned low, below the normal hearing thresold.

"Yes, it takes you into possible futures. You heard that right," Jeeves said looking at the news on Alan's terminal as he spoke to Alan. "I know it sounds like crap, but that's what it does after all."

Alan looked at Jeeves perplexed. Probably the indifference and relaxed state Jeeves was in gave him the clear impression that the man wasn't lying. "How on Earth does that get me into possible futures?" Alan began to think. "Is there such a thing? And if there is, is there a substance for it? I didn't know..."

Jeeves looked at him again and resumed his explanation.

"I know that artists are quite attracted to metaphysics and the spiritual avenues that religions, and certain substances offer. You can't help being one of those, I'm sure."

"Yes...but so far...actually..."

Jeeves stared at Alan again.

"Are you surprised that there are possible futures or that this substance gives you access to them? I'm sure you knew that there are at least in theory a multitude of timelines, as even science is trying to prove ... although I don't think they'll ever succeed, or at least not in the next 500 or 1000 years, here on Kalara IV."

"To be honest, parallel realities aren't my strong suit," Alan said after a while, scratching his head. He put the cigarette he'd been puffing on back into the ashtray, and folded his hands, looking at Jeeves.

"Any moment in our reality, as I can explain it to myself and as I can explain it to others I've talked to on the subject, has an infinite number of choices. And we make one. The rest of an infinity minus 1, which we have already made, is somehow still unfolding, can you believe that? I know it's just a theory, but it's one of the theories embraced by quite a few scientists studying this."

He takes the cigarette from the ashtray, relights it, and continues.

"The point is that at any given moment, there are an infinite number of potential, possible actions. We do one. Then again, there's still an infinity of choices. We choose again. And this is a timeline, in which we exist. There are an infinite number of timelines besides our own, in which we make other choices than we did in our present one. And these timelines "exist" and "run", parallel to each other. And over time, because of the different choices, at each step, in each timeline, they become pretty much distant from each other, and these parallel worlds start to look different." He paused, as if to let Alan digest what he had just said.

"As in each timeline the choices are slightly different, over time, the timelines become substantially distant from each other. And Substance L does that, it "throws" you into one of these other timelines. Some are almost identical, some are very different." Jeeves marveled that he had managed to explain it to Alan in a way that he could understand, especially since Alan was still looking at the plastic-like bottle strangely.

"So you're saying..."

"Yes," Jeeves said more loudly. "And it's for you to experiment. I thought you might like it. Anyway the first bottle is on the house. The second one, and all the ones to follow cost 45 Galactic Credits. I can't give them any cheaper. I get them with difficulty, and sometimes I run out of them. For you I'll go for zero profit, but for a good friend I'll always give everything. They're quite in demand among my customers, some even can't get enough. I even have two customers who ask me for huge quantities," he said and smiled.

He pauses to hand Alan his cigarette back and continued.

"I know, it's risky, bloody risky, but you know me. I make a lot of money with them, it's maybe 20% to 25% of my entire income," Jeeves said with a relaxed but serious air. "You'll like it anyway, you'll see, and since it has no side effects, you're safe," he concluded, and put both hands on the couch.

Alan was still wondering what Jeeves had told him.

"Very interesting what you're telling me. I feel as if someone came and unlocked a door I had no idea about, which was always locked anyway and no one had access to it. Do you have any idea how the substance works on an organic level?" Alan asked.

Jeeves suddenly looked at Alan with more interest.

"So it's started to interest you, I take it?" he said. "Well, there's not much to tell. Or at least I don't know that much. I can tell you what I do know, but if you want to know more, know that you can find many references in Alandra's online library, though they're all unofficial. This substance is not something that is meant to be studied. At least not yet."

Jeeves paused for a moment and continued.

"What I know, I learned out of sheer curiosity from those from whom I get my substance, with whom I occasionally exchange various conversations. I've also been curious to find out what and how, but I haven't learned that much."

Jeeves sank more comfortably on the couch as if he was already feeling more comfortable and the subject was becoming increasingly interesting.

"Basically Substance L acts somehow on the body but mostly on the brain, flooding some of its receptors. Once the receptors 'swallow' this substance, the vibration or vibratory level of the person's consciousness increases. This has not been proven so far, but unofficially, this is how its effect translates. It is said to activate the spirit somehow, meaning that part of you that normally exists, but you don't necessarily physically perceive. It also activates the pineal gland, 400% of what it normally is during the day, and its energy vortex, the "third eye" as it's called, starts spinning 4 times faster than normal and activates differently than it normally does, because of its interaction with the substance. The connection of the spirit of the person using the substance with the Universe is much more intense, stronger, and through the energy vortex of the pineal gland, you are practically connecting to one of the billions of possible alternative futures, or simply put, to other timelines, depending on the frequency that the Substance generates in your brain. So far I've been about as coherent as it gets."

Alan was very attentive and quickly nodded in the affirmative.