Being out of your body for the first-time, or any time really, can be pretty jarring at first.
At first, I was pretty concerned about my lack of limbs and the erasure of what I perceive to be my normal senses. From an intellectual standpoint I was fascinated to find you don’t really understand what it is like to feel the air on your skin until you don’t have skin anymore.
“Oh. First timer. I’ll give you a minute to sort yourself. It’s fun the first time. It’s almost a shame that you’ll immediately be putting on a meat suit again. I could go through the niceties of asking about your name and about you but we’re sort of in a rush so I’ll just take a quick look and -- ah, nice to meet you Susan, I’m Fei Hong, but I prefer F. Please refer to me as she/her.”
The other ball of light hovering with me over the city of Tokyo seemed pretty patient, if not downright casual. We were several miles above the ground. Or at least to me that is how far it seemed to be. Eyeballing it without eyeballs is a new experience.
Ah. The information appeared in my mind. Handy that. We were 7 miles up, plus or minus 10 meters. It seemed strange to me that the plus or minus was in a different system of measurement but it’s not like I was the Dao of Which Measurements to Use. I know now that she’s very nice but a little scatterbrained.
“Oh. Hello F, it is a pleasure to meet you. I look forward to working with you. This is my first day! My name is Sus--”
“Yeah I got all that. I don’t mean to rush you or be rude but we’re on a tight schedule. Optimal window of transfer for our target is in 5 minutes.”
“Oh.” I looked around and saw a bird paused in flight. I briefly wondered how we could be on a tight schedule if time was frozen. I was such a rookie back then, so I of course asked. “It doesn’t look like we’re in any rush.”
“Haha. Oh I remember now. So look, it’s going to be your first day for a very, very long time. The Dao of Time and Space is pretty amazing at what they do, but all that time has to go somewhere, or in some cases, doesn’t go anywhere if you don’t move forward through it. Make sense?”
“They tried to cover it in basics but it all seemed pretty conflicting.”
“What it really comes down to is you have all of time, space, and as literal an eternity as you can imagine to accomplish all the tasks set out before you. In fact, it’s probably more of an eternity then you can imagine. Whether it takes you that long is up to you. The company would prefer that you finish your task before entropy of all things takes hold so they can give you your reward and suitable compensation for your work. It’s an HR thing.”
“Ah. I see. And the faster, if you’ll forgive the term--”
“We prefer effecient.”
“Okay, and the more efficient I am the better my reward will be? I’ll be promoted if, for example, I was a real go getter?”
“Yes and no. You don’t want to work too hard. There are metrics and standards to meet and goals to achieve. Just remember that some of the metrics and standards are also calculating how far you deviate from the norm. You don’t want to be too far from those metrics and standards because then the brass starts wondering what your game is. It’s best not to look like a schemer.”
“Oh. So, as a professional, I should be meeting my goals and not doing too well or too poorly.”
I sort of got it. Being mindlessly dedicated was considered a sign of mental health degradation by the company.
“Yes. That would be for the best. We’re saving worlds and facilitating the transfer of key players identified by the Dao of Fate. It’s really best not to think too much about it. Or at all. I knew a his/him that laughed and said he had it all figured out, and maybe he did it was his fourth day, and almost immediately the Dao of Fate arrived and they had a showdown in the sky over a world called… well, I forget. But they were immediately arguing over the future of some kid named Linley and a God Eater Rat. It ended up with them getting so worked up that they spent the rest of the guy's first week hashing it out.”
“Oh. I guess it wasn’t exactly a fated encounter then.” Heh. I thought I was funny at least.
“Nice.”
“Did your his/him get erased by the Dao of Fate? I heard there can only be one true holder of a dao of any kind in the Multiverse. I mean there are as many Daos in existence as there are stars in the sky is a saying, but with all the worlds in the multiverse I gotta figure every once in a while there’s a fight?”
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“Oh they fight. They used all sorts of secret spiritual techniques and savaged a few solar systems. In the end the Dao of Fate compromised with him and now his role is a senior position in the company. He’s the Dao of Fate of Selected God Eater Beasts.”
“Wow.”
“Not really. The Over Dao of Fate was pretty miffed to be giving up a department and the Dao of Fate of Selected God Eater Beasts hates his new name.”
“Wow.”
“Enough of this. Let’s fly down and find a way to transfer our assignment. Normally I’d just take care of it but I’m interested to see what you do so, have at it! If you get nervous or need help let me know and I’ll Transenergize us back a few minutes.”
“Thanks F.” I was feeling a little squirrely after all. Or I imagined myself feeling squirrely and having a body to feel squirrely in again. Currently I was a lovely shade of robin blue. Shame no one could see me with the naked eye. To be honest having a spiritual consciousness was probably the best thing ever. Fuck bodies. For real.
We moved down into Tokyo and flitted over traffic. It was also nice to move directly over traffic. Just because the traffic was frozen didn’t make it any less nice to be zipping over what would normally be a terrible part of anyone’s day.
“I have sighted the target.”
“Confirmed at this time that trainee student Susan has correctly identified Suzuki Ichirou, 29, at his place of work.”
“Ah. He’s in his office and sleeping. He appears to be in poor health.” A quick look around revealed that there were other people in the office sleeping under desks as well. Time to get to work.
I turned on his computer without turning on the monitor. I’d like to say there was some hacking involved but I didn’t need the monitor to operate the computer and I didn’t need his password either because the Dao of Getting Into Things was always available to our department. I had barely thought of the request and already I was into his computer. I quickly brought up a word pad and wrote a quick note about how exhausted Suzuki Ichirou had been with, well, everything. A loner, underappreciated, some fatso kept pushing work onto him, didn’t get enough to eat -- a bunch of things that made no coherent sense after that showing sleep deprivation signs, and then a signature with a ‘goodbye cruel world’.
I transmattered some empty energy drinks all around his work area and even put in a prescription bottle of anti-anxiety medication under a folder on his desk where it would be found. I even wrote the prescription for him in the medical database so that when the police did an investigation it would just seem like an imbalance of medication.
During all of this cleaning up it finally occurred to me to turn the monitor on because the people in the office would probably want to see the note I had left behind.
At last, satisfied with my arrangements, I hovered over Ichirou’s sleeping body and thought about my next move. I floated to the window and with a thought opened it up. It would have been stuck but thanks to the Dao of Opening Stuck Windows, also on retainer to the department, it slid open soundlessly in a jiffy.
Finally, I chose not to possess anyone else in the room for this task because I didn’t want them implicated in Ichirou’s world relocation. So I hopped into his body, got him up, walked him to the window, sat on the ledge, and then leaned out into open space.
“Oh. Could you start time for me for a moment?”
“Sure.”
Time started back up, and, I/Ichirous fell out the window to the street several stories below.
I was possessing the body until the moment it hit the ground so that Ichirou-san wouldn’t have to suffer through any pain. I’m not a barbarian, and it would make me look courteous in a review.
Oh. This is a problem.
I had that thought because I’m in Ichirou-sans body and I’m lying on the street and his body hadn’t quite given up the ghost yet. Most of his bones are broken, bleeding badly, he probably would die but I didn’t have all night.
I began to fret because I was going to have to ask F to transmatter us back in time again and would have wasted a perfectly good plethora of evidence.
Wait.
Headlights. Time was still moving forward while I was considering my options and I saw with my energy consciousness a friend moving toward me. A friend I would come to rely on in the future that would get me through years and years of work. A tool of precision. An instrument of fate and relocation.
It was a midnight blue 1995 Toyota Hilux, sometimes referred to simply as a Toyota Pickup. Information flared across my being from the Dao of Vehicles:
MPG: Up to 22 city / 27 highway
Towing capacity: 3,500 lbs
Transmission: 5-speed manual
Fuel tank capacity: 13.7 to 19.3 gal
Engine: 2.4 L 4-cylinder, 3.0 L V6
Right this second it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
THUMP. THUMP. SCREECH.
“Let the record show that Mentor F acknowledges that trainee Susan has completed her assignment and relocated the target at optimal timing.” F had floated down and was hovering near me as we both admired my handywork.
“That wasn’t so bad.”
“No remorse?” F asked.
“Why? I didn’t kill him. I relocated him. It’s not like he’s joining the wheel of reincarnation or anything. Also his life was kind of…” I hesitated to think aloud what I thought of someone else’s existence. “I just think this is a step up.”
“Did you plan for the truck?”
“Should I say yes?”
“Yes.”
“I absolutely planned for the truck.”