The Time Master (Interworld Network Book I) Chapter #3

Chapter 3

IF YOU WANT to keep yourself from having destructive thoughts, you should lose yourself in hard physical labor. Just read the history of any totalitarian regime, and you can see that those governments recognized this simple truth. People under those regimes toiled hard, from morning to night, leaving them no time for any foolish ideas.

I was lucky enough to be able to deal with my mental issues that way. In my line of work, I had to focus on whatever I was carrying, without descending into contemplation. I worked on autopilot — my arms and legs knew exactly what they had to do.

There was no real lunch break. The damned van that was scheduled to come in the evening arrived at 2 p.m. To unload it, we made a human chain, with Marat as the anchor. He adeptly punctured a few 1.5-liter bottles with a rusty nail, flipped them so the beer wouldn’t spill out, and set them off to the side. There you go, faulty goods!

By 6:30 p.m., we’d not only managed to finish our work, but had polished off most of the expropriated beer. I declined. My head was so muddled that drinking would be a terrible idea. In any case, beer had little to do with this grotesque beverage in plastic bottles. I preferred to hold off until the evening when I could drink a normal beer — a draft or at least something from a glass bottle.

Bones was a good guy who always kept his word. At 6:45 p.m. I shook Marat’s hand and we went our separate ways. He lived nearby, which was probably the main reason he wanted this job. I headed to the bus stop.

A snowy sleet fell on my face. It was dark on the way from the warehouse to the street, but that was typical. I walked slowly so I wouldn’t lose my footing. As I shuffled along, I tried to grasp at the thoughts swirling through my head like they were Chinese meditation balls I was trying to manipulate.

The main development branch was Time Master. Now I knew what that involved: rewinding time. That was what the gold bar showed. Apparently, I could rewind three times in a row, going back three or four seconds. I’d need to keep experimenting. The only question was how to do it.

I looked in front of me and gave myself a mental command to move through time. Predictably, nothing happened. The other time, it had been fear that had moved me. I’d had a scare and then I was propelled through time.

I shook my head. This was crazy. The whole incident in the foundation pit, and now the time travel. I touched my forehead. No fever. But this was definitely out of order.

I emerged into a small, illuminated open space under a streetlight. Now I was within spitting distance of the bus stop. I stepped onto the path dusted with prickly snow and immediately slipped. It happened so suddenly that I didn’t even have time to pull my hands out of my pockets. My vertebrae cracked...

[ ∞ ]

I emerged into a small, illuminated open space under a streetlight. Now I was within spitting distance of the bus stop.

Stop!

I carefully skirted the snow-dusted icy patch.

The adrenaline was still racing through my veins. I had just time-traveled — again!

I mechanically took a few steps and looked at my watch.

[ ∞ ]

I looked at my watch again. This time, the rewind ability went back exactly three seconds. The gold bar was only one-third full. But the most important question was, how was I able to do it? This time I had just willed it to happen. So why couldn’t I do it before?

I reached the bus shelter and sat down on the bench. My heart was beating wildly; my skin was covered with goosebumps. They weren’t from the cold, but from what I had just experienced.

I could now achieve whatever I wanted. What if, for example, I learned some boxing, landed a good hook, and became world champion? Why not? Suppose I knew where to punch my opponent, and I had three chances to duck and knock him out.

But what if he stood his ground? Hm, a punch fest didn’t sound like a good option.

What if I were a soccer player? Yeah, that would be cool. On the field, Sergei Demidov who can dodge any world-class defender with a single movement because he knows where the other guy is headed. But once again, I’d only be able to do that three times. And then what? Substitution, the bench, class demotion. My fantasies of having Cristiano Ronaldo’s career ended with me in the second amateur league.

I could become a firefighter and save lives. But three seconds and three chances weren’t that much. If only there were some way to extend the rewind or get more of this goodie!

Hold on… If I was indeed a Player, that made it perfectly feasible. There had to be some levels and experience you could collect. All I needed to do was find out how to do it.

I hailed the approaching bus, got on, and went to sit at the back. I caught myself thinking that the little text boxes over my fellow passengers’ heads already seemed completely normal. That made sense — you always get used to good things quickly. I perused the passengers’ descriptions. There was nothing interesting, except the guy by the front door turned out to be a Lothario.

I gazed out the window at the somber landscape of the dark winter evening. I knew every angle of every building, every bump on the road, and every turn by heart. I didn’t even need to look through the mud-spattered glass. When you spend a few years traveling the same route to work, it’s impossible not to memorize it. But today it was like everything around me had been transformed.

I didn’t recognize the buildings lining the avenues. The stalls in one of the little markets looked old and shabby, and in some places signs had been changed. At the same time, the city was still recognizable by certain scattered fragments - like the stained-glass jigsaw puzzle I had to put together. That said, it appeared completely new to me.

I felt like I’d stepped through Alice’s looking glass. Or like this was in fact two worlds merged together: one old and familiar, the other one new and open to discovery. For example, why would someone hang a sign in an incomprehensible language in the middle of the main street? I could swear it hadn’t been there yesterday. And why were planes flying so low over the city? Or were they even planes?

I took out my headphones and put on some Rolling Stones, my all-time favs who’d wrongly been shoved aside by the fab four from Liverpool. Ironically, the shuffle mode landed on Paint It Black. It perfectly matched the reality unfolding outside the window.

On the other hand, things weren’t quite so bleak. True, there was some sort of crap at work here. I didn’t understand it and that frightened me. But as everyone knows, when one door closes another one opens. All I needed to do was force myself to see it.

I was about four minutes away from my street when I noticed him. He was an ordinary man, just one of many. But the text box above his head was brighter. I could spot it from thirty yards away. He looked around as though he sensed that he was being watched, and ducked into the closest bar.

“Hey! Please stop! I missed my stop! Please!”

The bus, which had just begun to pull away, braked sharply. Under the disapproving stares of the other passengers, I leaped out and pulled on my hood. I all but ran to the traffic light and waited for it to turn. If only my eyes weren’t playing tricks on me...

“Excuse me, where’s the stop to Friendship Street?” an ancient voice said behind me.

I looked to see who it belonged to. Just some old lady, wearing a threadbare fur jacket, felt boots and knitted mittens, and wrapped up in two shawls. And of course she had a trolley bag. These ladies can never find a handbag big enough.

“You need to go that way, ma’am. Friendship Street is over there,” I pointed.

“But where’s the bus stop?” she looked around.

“On the other side. Right in front of the traffic light. I’ll take you there, if you wish.”

“Oh, good boy, yes, please do.”

She grabbed her cart and graciously offered me her arm.

Just then the light changed. As I shuffled across the street with the little old lady in tow among a swarm of passing pedestrians, I kept my eyes on the bar’s door through which the man had entered. It looked like no one had come out. Excellent.

We reached the other side just in time when the “don’t walk” signal had already started to blink warningly.

“Thank you, young man, thank you.”

You’ve helped a commoner who is neutral to you.

+10 karma points. Current level: -90. You gravitate to the Dark Side.

I looked at the semitransparent notification that was scrolling fast in front of my eyes.

Eureka. So if I helped nine more old ladies cross the street, would I make it to zero?

“Ma’am, do you need to cross back to the other side?”

“Why would I need to do that?”

“Uh... so I can help you. To increase my karma.”

“Look at him, he’s completely off his face,” she snapped, promptly turning into an indignant fury. “They get high on their drugs and then they hassle you. Get away from me right now!”

So much for her gratitude. I shrugged off my ten karma points and headed toward the bar.

What is it they say? Good deeds will never make you famous? Well, up yours! I just needed to think a little about what to do. Anyway, why was I trying so hard to get above zero? First I needed to find out what this “karma” thing was supposed to do.

I ended up in front of a locked steel door sporting a sign that read:

Tavern

That was all. Nothing indicating the business hours nor a colorful menu displaying Russian delicacies. They could have at least painted some appetizing pictures of borscht, meat dumplings, or aspic on the shop window. Otherwise, how would visitors know they could get a good meal here?

What an odd place. Hesitantly I pulled the door toward me.

I stepped into a small lobby. A glazed wooden partition separated it from the main room. Tavern was the last thing you’d call this place. “Restaurant” would be more accurate. And if you wanted to be even more accurate, it actually appeared to be an exclusive club.

The room was decked out in English-style arched leather armchairs, couches, small tables, and a bar in the middle with a television above it. But most important, all the patrons had the same illuminated text boxes over their heads.

Except the information that was displayed kind of put me on my guard. Vivisectionist, Sorcerer, Wrathful, Mercenary, Guard, Swordsman, Artist_Chick, Runner, Armor-Clad Warrior, Coward, Archalus, Turncoat.

My eyes paused on the Archalus because this creature looked exactly like the classic image of an angel: light, flowing clothing, long hair, two wings folded over each other. The other beings too would stand out in the crowd because not all of them were human, either.

“So you’ve decided to drop in on us, Korl?” a tall burly man asked, appearing out of nowhere on my left.

I jumped. The notification above his head said:

Teleporter

I nodded. “So I have.”

“You know the rules.”

It wasn’t a question, but he was obviously expecting an answer. I’d need to improvise.

“Don’t break the dishes and don’t get into fights?” I offered.

“Something like that,” he said with a smile. “Come on in.”

The Teleporter dissipated as if the wind had blown him away, only to reappear behind a table on the other side of the partition.

Now I had no choice. If I left now, I’d look like an idiot. You never know, they might even catch up with me and teach me a lesson in manners.

I could rewind time, I suppose. Except that here, three seconds clearly wouldn’t get me out of trouble.

To be honest, I’d never been afraid of being onstage, even though I’d never had the chance to perform before. But now, with some twenty-five pairs of eyes staring at me, I felt my palms and neck break out in a sweat. Thankfully, most of the eyes looking at me belonged to humans.

I noticed a stocky blond guy sitting at a far table. He had the same fair complexion as myself — or rather, as the stranger who had recently settled into my mirror. He nodded, obliging me to respond.

I stole over to an empty table by the entrance and sat down. The others soon stopped eyeing me openly; a few of them resumed their chatter. A Sorcerer bartender — if the information provided by my Insight was to be believed — scurried over to me.

“Greetings, Korl. Dust or cash?”

He handed me an open menu. I looked at it. Opposite each dish there was either a number 1 or a 3, and an unusual image of what looked like a small mound of sand.

“Cash,” I answered.

The bartender waved the menu in the air. The indecipherable currency disappeared, replaced by familiar price lists. Now I could find my way around it. The prices suggested that this was a second-rate restaurant; I could actually bring a date here without going bankrupt.

“Can I have a couple of minutes? This is my first time here.”

“Of course,” he said with a nod and went back behind the bar.

Everything here was weird. Weren’t there any waiters? Actually, judging by the half-empty tables, people didn’t really eat here. It looked to be more of a drinking establishment. Anyway, it was irrelevant. I had more important things to contemplate.

Now I had a chance to take a closer look at the representatives of all the different races or species — whatever they were supposed to be. The guy nearest to me appeared to be human with pitch-black skin and yellow eyes. He had bizarre growths jutting out of his head which looked like a few meager strands of hair that were gathered together and covered with hairspray. They must have been some sort of outgrowth, like small, flexible horns. According to my Insight, this guy was very Wrathful.

The Archalus was sitting nearby. He was sipping a beer, shooting the breeze with an ordinary person — as much as the beings sitting here could be called ordinary. A bit farther away, a peculiar creature sat perfectly motionless: it had a human head and torso, but its limbs were clearly made of a dull metal I couldn’t identify. Armor-Clad Warrior.

There was only one girl here: tall and slim, with large, expressive eyes and short chestnut hair. She was cute, if you ask me. She gave me a quick glance and then stuck her nose back in the sketchbook, scribbling with a pencil. Artist_Chick.

All right, now I needed to act like everything around me was business as usual. I leafed through the menu. This place was anything but a humble tavern. If they had even half the dishes on the menu, they could safely claim a Michelin star.

Still, I wasn’t about to experiment. I lifted my hand, beckoning the bartender. “I’d like the mutton dumplings and a pint of the Czech beer.”

“One moment.”

The bartender took the menu and went back behind the bar, and that’s when I saw real magic. He made a mysterious flourish with his hands. A clump of light that looked like a crumpled piece of paper flitted from his fingers. It rocketed up, circled for a moment, then flew toward the kitchen.

The Sorcerer caught my surprised look and winked. All right.

This was obviously not a demonstration of telekinesis with contactless combat. This was what you read about in books. Yet the bartender had done all of this with such a bored and indifferent expression as if it was nothing out of the ordinary. Or maybe it was, for him at least.

I scratched the back of my neck and turned my eyes to the TV screen above the bar.

The news was on. But there was something different about it, too. National reports were interspersed with petty little stories from small-town studios I’d never even heard about. From what I could tell, no one had deliberately changed the channel.

...

Zoologists are sounding the alarm in Voronezh Province. The number of wolves has reached a critical level. The frequency of wolf attacks on people has surged. For retiree Ludmila Sokolova, an encounter with a wolf was nearly her last.

“It was so terrifying! I was heading home, I was almost there, and someone was puttering around next to the doghouse…”

...

The search for a missing eight-year-old girl has been going on for a day. Vicky Novoseltseva left for school yesterday morning. But she didn’t make it....

Oh, boy, that was our city. I recognized the presenter. That was definitely our city. I craned my neck to try to see the details, but my view was blocked by the stocky blond guy who had nodded at me earlier.

“Haisa, brother,” he said, offering me his hand.

“Haisa,” I said, guessing that this was some kind of greeting.

“Have you been here long?”

“In town?”

He chuckled. “In this world.”

“Yes... a long time.”

“I’ve only been here a month,” he said. “And I don’t like it. It’s too hot here, even now. It’s snowing out, but there’s no point.”

Once again he looked at me steadily, evidently considering something, and then he spoke,

“My name’s Traug. I’m here for at least three months. I got into trouble in Elysium so I decided to sit it out here. If you need any help, come find me. The second house to the right from the city Gatekeeper. Korls always stick together, even the half-bloods,” he added after a short but meaningful pause.

He shook my hand again and left.

I set about trying to untangle all this information. He said that he hadn’t been in this world long. And he came from someplace called Elysium. That was the first thing. And he and I were both Korls. That’s what the guard at the door and the bartender had called me, too. Since he and I looked quite a bit alike, I figured it was some race.

But it was nonsense. Why Korls? I was a human. My parents were human, and so were my grandparents. Having said that... I couldn’t vouch for anything now. As recently as yesterday, I would have never thought of investigating this sort of thing.

OK, I’d figure this out later.

Thirdly, he mentioned some Gatekeeper. Did he mean the one for the local soccer club? In which case his would be the second house from the stadium, right? Only there were no houses next to it. No, by saying “city Gatekeeper” he must have meant something else.

My thoughts faded so fast that I promptly forgot what I’d been thinking about, distracted by a fragrant plate of dumplings and a sweating glass of beer that had appeared out of nowhere in front of me.

No, there was no magic involved. I was just so lost in thought that I hadn’t noticed the waitress. She was around fourteen, and she wore her hair in a bun. Most important, she was an ordinary person. She had a dull label over her head which informed me that in addition to whatever else she was supposed to be, she was also a Musician.

“Enjoy.”

“Thank you.”

Like any other Russian, I had a lot of preconceived notions about mutton dumplings. Slaughtering and cooking lamb is an art in itself, and I didn’t have the knack for it. Most of us only ever taste this meat when it’s cooked poorly and has a sharp, repugnant odor — and then they say that we’re unable to appreciate it.

But these dumplings... they were so good that after the first one I was afraid that I’d just choke on gastric acid. Juicy and sprinkled with chopped spring onions, they simply melted in my mouth. I only paused my eating to swill it down with some beer — and then I nearly lost my mind again.

You should never, ever drink quality draft beer. Because after that it’s impossible to swallow that foamy, rubbery beverage that passes for beer in this country. I had the impression that on the other side of the door stood Pilsen, the good old Czech city where authentic Czech brewers were making their fabled beer. There’s no way ordinary brew could be as delectable as this.

I sat back from my empty plate feeling happy and sated. I finished the beer and took out my wallet. It turned out not to be so cheap — $6 for a portion of dumplings and $3.50 for the pint of their Czech ambrosia. What the hell, it was worth it. I didn’t know if it was customary to leave a tip here, but I added one anyway and started for the door.

Still, the moment I’d polished off my dinner, I realized that I felt uncomfortable here. A bit like a farmer in ripped overalls who suddenly ends up at the White House. Every passing minute increased the risk of me being found out. So I did the only thing I could. I left money on the table and quietly exited. Fortunately, everyone, including the bartender, was fixated on the next gruesome story on TV.

I got outside and took a deep breath. The air was warm and pleasant, and even the snow falling on my face felt familiar. And it wasn’t hot outside at all — this Traug guy had been talking a lot of BS.

I strode over to the intersection and searched for an old lady to help cross, but had no luck. I crossed the street empty-handed and went to the bus stop. By some sort of miracle, my bus showed up almost immediately. I plopped down in an empty seat, ignoring the messages above people’s heads. I’d gotten sick and tired of it all in the last two days.

I must have dozed off because I very nearly missed my stop. I jumped out at the traffic light as the migrant driver swore at me in his own language. It was almost 9 p.m. already. All because of that foolish trip to the bar.

And what had I learned? Apparently, there were these creatures called Players. I wasn’t the only pretty face around. If I were to believe Traug, there was also this other world called Elysium. And maybe there were also others like it. The existence of all those different races suggested that that there might also be lots of worlds. The Players had their own currency which they called dust. I doubted that it was the same dust that collected on my shelves. What else?

I was lost in thought when I got to the door of my building. There was no one sitting on the benches. That wasn’t surprising — a snowstorm was brewing, gusts of wind blowing handfuls of prickly snow in my face.

I opened the security door and nearly knocked heads with the upstairs neighbors, a married couple.

“Hello,” I said mechanically.

“Hello, Sergei,” the woman said. “Nicky, why are you stopping? Let’s go.”

But both I and the fifty-year-old Uncle Nick had stopped dead in our tracks.

Because I was staring at yet another Player.

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The Time Master (Interworld Network Book I) Chapter #2

Chapter 2

I even looked out the window, just to be sure. Occasional passersby, wrapped in thin jackets that were still too light for winter (it was all the fault of the late cold spell) were bustling home. No one was chasing or devouring anyone. Maybe I’d been hurled into some sort of parallel universe?

I gave my apartment a check. No, it didn’t gel with my theory. The same crumbling Soviet-era furniture: the folding couch, Grandma’s old table with my laptop on it, the Czech wall unit[4] — the last vestiges of a country that no longer existed. The chipped wooden windows, the wallpaper that had been put up when my grandfather was still alive, the curtains... They obviously didn’t match the interior and who knows when they’d last been washed? Other than the computer and TVs — one in the tiny kitchen and the other in the bedroom-living room-only room — nothing had changed since my grandmother was around. I mean, I’m a self-confessed slob and my bachelor’s lifestyle does nothing to counter that.

I went back to the kitchen to mull things over, especially because I’d already finished the first bottle of beer and the sausages were cooked. I poured some mayonnaise and ketchup onto a plate and created an absentminded meal to the accompaniment of a sports commentator lamenting about how a soccer striker had missed an empty goal from 10 yards away.

My head was heavy. I couldn’t get myself to form even a few intelligent thoughts, all the more so because my body’s efforts were focused on digesting the food. In fact, the beer was acting like a sedative. My eyes were sticking together and my nose was trying to get acquainted with the table. Sleep. I needed some sleep. There must be a reason why people say you should sleep on it.

THE ALARM ON MY PHONE had been screaming for nearly a minute before I turned it off. I pattered to the bathroom in the darkness. The things you dream!

I turned on the light and nearly yelped. That sturdy blond guy was still there. He gazed out of the mirror looking a little frightened, but he obviously hadn’t gone anywhere.

So I guess it wasn’t a dream. I put toothpaste on my toothbrush, sat down on the edge of the tub and started to think about how I’d continue to live.

When I’d nearly finished brushing the right side, I froze in disbelief. How had I never noticed these progress bars before? They hovered in my line of vision in pairs, two on top and two on the bottom, scaring me in the way that I imagined a 16-year-old girl felt when taking a pregnancy test. The two on the top were sort of gold and green, while the ones on the bottom were red and blue.

OK, let’s think about this. It all had started yesterday when I’d punched that stranger. Someone in my head had called him a Player. As in, Ready Player One?

Maybe I’d somehow taken his place? In that case, everything would be simple. The red bar was health, the blue one was mana, the green one was vigor, but what about the gold one? Who the hell knew? The level of my sex appeal? Considering my new appearance, it was entirely plausible.

I finished brushing my teeth and climbed into the shower. The water was barely warm; the water main in our district had probably burst again, but I was used to it. Ever since I was a kid, I’d never been afraid of the cold.

After I’d dried off, I got dressed and sat down in the kitchen to contemplate. By all accounts, I needed to go to the hospital. To have a brain scan or whatever. Maybe it would simply turn out that there was a tumor in my head, and that tumor was trying to put me at odds with reality. On the other hand, if I skipped work right now, Bones definitely wouldn’t be happy. My boss was thin and sinewy, and on top of that he was also grim — obviously you didn’t need to look far to think of a nickname for him.

I thought for a bit, then dialed his number.

“Hello,” said a disgruntled voice.

“Eh, sir-”

“Sergei, I don’t want to hear it. Fyodor and Alexei are kicking back again. No matter what’s happened, I’m not giving you the day off. The van of beer is coming today. And who’s gonna supply the stores?”

“But-”

“But what, do you have a fever? Did you break your arm? No? Then you have no excuse. Do you expect me to run around the warehouse myself?”

With that he hung up.

As the saying goes, it wasn’t in the cards. I guess I’d need to go out. The news that Fyodor and Alexei had gone on a bender was unwelcome, of course. Everyone would need to run around more. On the other hand, the work was such that it attracted a certain crowd. People with college degrees don’t typically become warehouse loaders. I mean, normal people.

In my case, it was a conscious choice. I’d spent five years getting an economics degree just to go and work with my hands. You should have seen my father’s face. In fact, that was the first and biggest reason I’d done it. They’d already bought me a military card[5] and got a cushy job lined up for me in a fancy company — the job which, according to them, had “a lot of potential”. And I just left and got myself a menial job with a bunch of like-minded losers. That was the second reason.

Of course, it was hard to brag to my friends that I had gotten a job as a loader all on my own without connections, but I really didn’t care. When you talk about a grown-up, independent life, the emphasis is on the word “independent.” Thirdly, it turned out that the job paid reasonably well for our rather large provincial city. I could afford to eat, drink, buy some clothing, and take my latest crush to the movies.

And to be honest, I didn’t have any particular friends. I had a couple of acquaintances from university I could meet once every couple of months to grab a beer and hear about their sexual conquests or failures or commiserate about their workloads. They tactfully avoided bringing up my work.

It’s clear that loader isn’t a career you dream about when you’re a kid. No one ever says, “If you do well in school, you’ll be stacking pallets of beer for a living.” I understood very well myself that with time I’d need to grow in some direction. But for the time being the question didn’t concern me much. What did concern me right now was the fact that I needed to run like hell to get to work on time.

I looked in the fridge. Other than yesterday’s sausages and a couple of eggs, it was blissfully empty. Although an omelet with a grade-B meat product isn’t bad in itself, you shouldn’t eat one every day. It had been drummed into me since childhood that breakfast was supposed to be balanced and contain the right amounts of protein, fat, and carbohydrates.

There was only one dish that fit these criteria, and it was sold close to my house. According to the clock on my wall, they’d already been open for a half hour. That meant that they’d had time to put out the meat and fry enough for a few portions.

In front of the door I felt as worried as Leonov[6] when he was about to step into outer space. The colored shapes before my eyes hadn’t disappeared, and my hands were shockingly pale. Apparently, I was supposed to get used to the changing reality and my new body. More precisely, I felt it like the old one, but my eyes didn’t lie. OK, I’d talk to Bones, anyway. Not for today maybe, but I’d ask for tomorrow off.

The stairway was silent; even Lydia didn’t poke her head out at the sound of my slamming door. On the third floor my nose started to itch as usual from the smell of cat piss coming from the apartment that belonged to a self-sufficient and independent (read: lonely) woman of an indeterminate age who seemed to hate people just as much as she loved cats.

As I skipped the rest of the way, the green bar trembled a little and began creeping downward. I pressed the button on the entry system next to the front door and dashed out into the fresh, frosty air.

“You understand what it’s about, my dear sir, don’t you? They’ve b... br... bred a feeling of inferiority in our people. They’ve drilled it into us that if we want to be great we need to hate someone. We need to have a common enemy that supposedly prevents us, the powerful and awesome, from getting on with our lives... Ah, Sergei, greetings and salutations,” Mr. Petrov waved to me.

I stopped for a moment and nodded. His friend — or to be more precise, his listener — was sitting next to him, struggling to stay awake. He had a neglected appearance: a battered sheepskin coat like they wore in the late 1970s, a drooping sweatsuit, and old shoes with scuffed and cracked leather toecaps.

The two were clearly conducting a sophisticated discussion and they’d already had quite a bit to drink. But there were two things that interested me.

First, what time did you have to wake up so you’d be so wasted by 10 a.m.? It’s true what they say: desire is the best motivation. But the second thing was the most curious.

There was a text box floating over the Professor’s head.

Alexander Petrov

Academic

???

Carpenter

???

This was amusing. It was just like in an advanced online game.

I looked at the man in the sheepskin coat.

???

???

Plumber

???

That was it. There was a little more information about the Professor. Maybe it was because I knew him and I was seeing the other man for the first time?

“Mr. Petrov, you never told me you used to be a carpenter,” I said.

“A carpenter!” he waved my remark aside. “My father, God rest his soul, now he was a cabinet maker from God. I’m just a tinkerer. I can only fix things or just potter about.”

I nodded, put my hood on, and skirted the building to go out to the street. The most dangerous thought of any madman crept into my head: what if I was normal? Meaning that maybe that guy from yesterday really gave me some sort of superpowers? Maybe it was even by chance, like bad diseases are typically transmitted? No, I wasn't going to start wearing my underpants on the outside. But what if I had also become some sort of Player, and I was now looking at the world through the concave mirror of convention?

The people who were hurrying to work only confirmed these wild ideas for me. They all had question marks floating above their heads. Some of them had only a few lines, while others had nearly ten or so. But they all had a line I could read: pastry chef, coin collector, leader, shoemaker, Tatar, teacher...

So this mysterious system was displaying not just professions, but also nationalities, certain personality traits, and hobbies.

With these thoughts I literally flew past the three buildings until the intersection where the bus stop was. The traffic was a little livelier here. But most important, that’s where Uncle Zaur made the most delicious shawarma[7]in his rather filthy-looking snack joint.

“Hello,” I said, nodding.

“Good morning,” the old shop owner returned my greeting.

A notification appeared over his head:

Zaur

Azerbaijani

Very funny. As if I didn’t know it. “One please, to go.”

“You should come in. I’ll give you some tea with it. You all eat on the go and then you have stomachache and blame it on my shawarma.”

Uncle Zaur muttered all of this as he spread sauce on the lavash bread, then began throwing hot meat on it with quick, agile movements. All I knew about the owner of this hole was that he’d come to Russia a long time ago, married a Russian woman and ran his own small but formidable business. He also had two guys working for him making shawarma and shish kebab, but Uncle Zaur himself was always close by. Sometimes he’d drink with the regulars or thoughtfully smoke a cigarette, arms crossed over his small belly.

“Here you go, no change,” I said, holding money out to him.

“Enjoy,” he said, handing over a bag with the shawarma.

I wolfed down the hot meat in the lavash before I even got to the bus stop, just in time to helplessly watch my departing bus. Now I’d have to wait another ten minutes or so. I stepped to the side, lit a cigarette and took a drag.

If you thought about it, things weren’t so bad — provided my head was in order. So if I were of no interest to shrinks, I needed to figure out how to take advantage of what had befallen me. As far as I could understand, the message said something about the Insight ability, the Light spell, and the Savior avatar. It wasn’t yet clear how to activate the latter two. As I understood it, Insight was passive and worked all the time.

The bus, which arrived before too long, thwarted all my plans to enslave the world. I had to get on. As I paid the driver, I noticed that in addition to the occasional question mark, a Speeder sign was burning bright above him. I immediately plopped down on a seat and grabbed hold of the handle in front of the standing spot.

I was really starting to like this new ability of mine because after three intersections, with a wild screech of the brake pads, the bus stopped after nearly crashing into some ancient dude driving a cheap sedan. All the passengers lurched forward. Except me. The Speeder tried two more times to hasten my meeting with God, but he didn’t succeed. When I got out by the building materials plant, I was a little shaken, but intact.

And there were advantages to the driver’s speed. I thought I’d be cutting it close, but I ended up arriving twenty minutes early. So I took my time crossing the street and beelined for our base.

It was made up of five identical warehouses on one side and an office that abutted them on the other. Nothing to write home about — just a small private business owned by a Russified German who rarely made an appearance, usually just when he had to pick up his earnings or give us a major dressing-down. Incidentally, when it came to dressing-downs, he could go toe to toe with Bones. As I’d already mentioned, the workers were a diverse bunch: former convicts, a few drunks down on their luck, a couple of migrants, and the occasional student. And me.

Over the course of the day, trucks came up to the guardrail, filled out requisitions, and then, under the alert supervision of the shipping agents and Bones himself, we loaded their vehicles with goods for small stores. At a different time, usually in the evening, vans with water and beer arrived.

Today, too, a van was scheduled to come. Nothing major, just about 20 tons, but, as I understood it, two of our regular crew had gone on a bender.

“What’s up?” Marat said, holding his hand out.

He’d already changed his clothes, laid a few pieces of cardboard on the guardrail in order not to freeze his rear end, and sat down on them. When he saw me, he smiled, flashing the two gold caps on his upper teeth, and extended his hand.

“Hi,” I answered him with interest, shaking his hand and examining his stats.

Marat Gubaydullin, age 32

???

Thief

???

Marat had been a young offender when he’d first gone to jail, and he’d left it long after he’d been transferred to the adult division. When he’d finally got out at the ripe age of 23, he got married and even had a little kid. But my secret assistant still designated him a Thief.

I doubted it was referring to Marat’s slippery past. He’d been in jail for robbery, not theft. That meant that he was stealing from the warehouse on the sly. Now I understood who Bones had in mind whenever he was swearing to bring everyone into the open.

“The van from Samara is coming today,” I said.

“Yes, I heard. I’m sure we’ll get a good drink out of it,” Marat nodded, flashing the gold-lined “Hollywood smile” that he’d gotten in the slammer.

I nodded. During any delivery there were enough faulty goods, or, more accurately (air quotes) “faulty goods”. Sometimes the drivers themselves left a couple of pallets at our mercy so they could finish the trip faster. On days like that the loaders went home tipsy and happy. Even Bones couldn’t do anything about that.

“Uncle Alexei and Fyodor are already drunk. They won’t be going out today.”

Marat cringed. “Shit.”

I understood him. We had no equipment. Our workload was measured utterly simply: in human — or if you approached the process with a sense of humor, donkey — power. Two extra pairs of hands unloading the van meant a lot to us — especially because, counting the two shirkers, there were only seven of us altogether.

“So we work overtime,” he immediately shared his unhealthy optimism. “A little extra cash won’t hurt.”

“Right. I’m going to get changed.”

As I left the closet, I ran into Bones. To me, despite the insulting nickname, our stock manager was the binding force here. He kept a firm hand on the loaders. If you took him away and put someone else in charge, it was unlikely that anyone here would actually work. You’d need to put together an entire staff again.

“Hi, Sergei,” Bones shook my hand like a genius diagnostician trying to determine how sick I was by looking at me. “How are you feeling?”

“My ears are sort of ringing,” I lied, scanning his face.

In addition to his full name, the Insight spat out new information: Model Maker. That was interesting. What kind of models did Bones make in his spare time?

“You’ll be sick tomorrow. But today, no way. By the way, the vehicle from store number 9 has arrived. Let’s go load it. There’s water, beer, energy drinks, and cookies. Marat, you hear?”

“Fifteen minutes until the shift starts,” my hardnosed coworker called out lazily.

“I’ll let you leave 15 minutes early.”

“Yeah, that’s if the van doesn’t show up when we’re closing,” Marat retorted, but moved from his spot.

It’s probably not worth bragging about, but I was very good at preparing shops’ orders. When I first started out, I looked like a complete misfit. But it’s like that in any field. You’d get the job, make people smile because you’re new, but then you gradually become an expert. In the beginning, I was constantly scurrying around and getting in the way, but now it was a real pleasure to look at me. I didn’t make a single extra movement.

“Carbonated water, six pallets, check,” Bones counted aloud. “Beer, glass, two, check. Beer, plastic, three crates.”

Marat and I danced around each other. He dove into the warehouse while I walked out with my load. Twenty bottles aren’t very heavy when they’re inserted with heavy cardboard and sealed thoroughly in new polyethylene.

Unfortunately, today we didn’t have such a luxury. All the beer was from an old delivery that had been sitting in the warehouse for a long time. The cardboard had fallen apart, and then a radiator had leaked and the packaging had gotten wet. As a result, I had to carefully hold the beer from the bottom. No matter how experienced I thought I was, better safe than sorry.

I wasn’t aware exactly at what point the case fell apart. Four bottles fell out through the hole in the bottom at the exact moment when my foot was already lifted onto the body of the truck.

I raised my head and saw Bones’ angry face. He opened his mouth and...

[ ∞ ]

Marat and I danced around each other. I couldn’t shake off the feeling of déjà vu. This had already happened, just now. I had exited the warehouse and the case of beer had fallen apart in my hands.

More precisely, I was now exiting the warehouse and...

By reflex I shifted the case in my hands, taking a better grip. The glass clinked mournfully.

“Be more careful, Sergei.”

“The case has no bottom, sir. We should tape it up.”

“Go ahead. Marat, one more case of glass bottles. Then we’ll move on to the cookies.”

Holding the tape, I crouched down, staring with acute fascination at the intact case of beer.

First of all, now I knew the purpose of that gold bar, which had now lost a third of its length. It was displaying the progress of that most important development branch.

And secondly, I now had the ability to rewind time.

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