July 19th, 2022
Johnathan woke up Tuesday around 7 a.m. with everything he’d meditated about still fresh on his mind. Humans had attributes and his were incredibly high? Role-playing games (RPGs) normally only had stats up to 25 in the original 2nd edition and those that had 25s were Gods. What he’d been told seemed more like the attribute system from a superhero RPG he’d played, but not quite. This brought up the question: Was he a God? Was he immortal? If everything about him was improved by 1,818%, did that mean that his average life span was increased by that much? That would mean that his life span would be about 1,563 years if the average lifespan of a male human was 86 years. First things first, though. He rose from his bed and went through his morning routine. He used the facilities, brushed his teeth, shaved, and took a shower. Heading into the kitchen, he saw that there was a note from his Mom and Dad:
“We have a breakfast date with Cruz’s from Church, won’t be back until this afternoon. Love Mom.”
Johnathan read the note and realized just how lucky he was that they weren’t around this morning. He wanted to try to figure out if the dreams were just dreams or if Abi existed. If it was all a dream, that would suck. Johnathan grabbed some Cocoa Pebbles from the cupboard, made a bowl, and sat at the table to eat. Opening his phone, he checked the news and social media to find out that nothing had changed. He’d started following the Stock Market but hadn’t really put much thought into it, though if his mind was supposed to be that much better, maybe he should? While he finished his breakfast, he watched the news.
Once Johnathan was done eating breakfast, he cleaned up his mess, rinsed off his dishes, and placed them in the dishwasher. That done, it was time to see if there really was no spoon.
Johnathan figured the easiest way to test whether what Abi was telling him was true or not was to go out to the backyard and grab the ladder. Extending it out, he placed one end against the roof with the bottom on the ground. Ground to the roof was about 12 feet, give or take. If he could actually jump 18 times as high as an average human, 12 feet should be a piece of cake. He looked around to make sure none of the neighbors were looking in his general direction. Satisfied no one was nearby or looking in his general direction, he focused on landing with his right foot on the roof directly in front of the ladder and jumped. A moment later his right foot landed where he’d wanted it to. He turned around quickly then looked down to the ground and exclaimed with a loud “Yeah!”
He dropped to the ground without a second thought, wait, what? On the ground, he realized he’d jumped down and it hadn’t even given him pause. He wondered how far he could drop without hurting himself. He brought his mind back and concentrated on what he was going to do next. Johnathan walked inside and grabbed one of the steak knives. Not being a complete moron, he took the sharp end to the tip of his finger and sliced it until he could just see blood starting to well up, which immediately stopped. He poked the knife against his finger until the tip was at least a half-inch inside. It hurt, but finally, there was a constant trickle of blood. He removed the knife and watched as the cut skin knit itself back together and the wound disappeared entirely within a second. He rinsed the knife off in the sink and then wiped it off with a paper towel before he put it in the dishwasher.
A few things came to mind after these two tests. First, was he blessed, or cursed? Second, letting anyone else know about this could be very bad. Third, he wouldn’t be able to do any more truly insane testing as there were cameras everywhere. That thought caused him to pause for a moment. Had anyone pointed a camera in that general direction? Reviewing his memories, he didn’t see any cameras. He could have missed something but if his luck was as high as Abi said, he would just have to trust in that hypothetical Luck attribute and not push said Luck. Then something weird happened.
Johnathan felt like Bradley Cooper's character from Limitless. His understanding of everything exploded. Overwhelmed he reached out and steadied himself against the sink and stopped moving. Every fictional novel he’d ever read, every class he’d ever taken, every single bit of information became available at once, cross-correlated, and as one of his favorite series always said when the main character learned a new skill, ability, or spell “He knew!” He didn’t know everything of course, but his gaming knowledge, coupled with every single science fiction, fantasy, and scientific paper he’d ever read he knew quite a bit, and in just under a second he had a plan.
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Johnathan went to his room and dressed to go out. He put on a nice pair of shorts and a nice T-shirt that had Neo and Trinity on it from the Matrix Resurrections. He thought it was kind of appropriate, all things considered. It would be appropriate if this first step in his plan worked. Johnathan grabbed his car keys and left the house. There was a Love's Truck stop on the south side of town he had to go visit to get the ball rolling.
When he arrived at the truck stop, Johnathan walked inside and went up to the counter where Cindy, a woman he’d known for the better part of his teens, was standing. She’d worked at this Love’s Truck Stop for as long as he could remember.
Looking up, she asked, “Hey Johnathan, haven’t seen you around here since you went off to college, what can I do for you?”
Pulling out three dollars, Johnathan smiled and said, “I’m feeling lucky today, heard the jackpot of mega-millions was up over half a billion, figured I’d buy a ticket.”
“Can’t win if you don’t play, or some such nonsense,” Cindy quipped back
“You know it. Hey, you should wish me luck. If I win, I’ll remember that you sold me the ticket!” Johnathan said with a smile.
Laughing, she took his money and handed him one of the random draws as she replied, “Well I would hope so. I’ve only known you almost your whole adult life. Of course, that’s just about half the population in this small town. Do you need anything else?”
Johnathan accepted the lottery ticket and put it in his wallet before he smiled and said, “Nope, this will do. Have a great day!”
With phase one complete, it was time to start working on phase two. Johnathan made his way to his house and then logged into his computer. Phase two was going to be tricky but his mind was absolutely sure his idea was possible. He started by researching Chemistry, Physics, Electronics, Metallurgy, and a couple of other subjects. Sure, he already had most of that knowledge in his head, but he wanted to make sure the information he was working with was the most up-to-date information available and focused on the most recent research in each field. At some point, he’d have to look up some top-secret information if he didn’t recreate it himself, of course. Johnathan reviewed all information on the basics before he started doing research into the specifics.
The rest of Tuesday flew by. His mom and dad stopped in when they returned to the house and came up to check on him. When they saw he was busy doing research into what looked like homework, high-level calculus problems were being discussed in a video he had running and he was looking at the theory of gravity on his computer screen, they left him alone. At 8:30 p.m. Johnathan came out of his room and watched some TV with his parents. They were watching some police drama and seemed really into it. He sat quietly, reviewing all the information he’d looked up while he waited for the lottery drawing to come on. He knew that if everything he was told last night was true this lottery drawing would be the event that changed his life forever. The program his parents were watching ended and the station went to a commercial and then switched over to the drawing.
“Good evening, everyone. We’re jumping in before your next scheduled program to bring you the winning numbers for today’s Mega-Millions drawing for 560 million dollars. Earlier this evening we drew the Megaplier. Anyone who does not win the jackpot but does match some of the numbers will have their winnings tripled. Good Luck Everyone!” Without any further fanfare, the announcer paused for a moment before announcing each number.
“13, 33, 38, 44, 1 and 9.”
Not needing to check his ticket, Johnathan knew for a fact the numbers on his ticket matched. The announcer looked off-camera for a second then started speaking.
“It looks like we have a winner! The Loves Truck stop in Clovis NM sold the winning ticket earlier today. Remember you only have 90 days to claim your prize and you must do so by coming to the Headquarters building here in Albuquerque.”
“Someone in Clovis won!” his father exclaimed.
I wonder who it was?” his mother asked.
Trying not to give anything away, Johnathan answered, “Well, they should know pretty quickly, who’s not going to claim 560 million dollars?” Sighing wistfully and losing interest, his father started surfing for something else to watch as Jonathan continued, “It’s been a long day; I’m going to turn in for the night. I have some running around to do tomorrow.”
Mom looked up, “Get a good night’s sleep and we’ll see you tomorrow afternoon sometime.”
Dad added, “Night Son, “ as he continued looking for something to watch.
Johnathan went to his room. He wasn’t tired, but he needed to stay on task. The first thing he had to do was claim the jackpot so he could start everything else he needed to. Tomorrow he was headed to Albuquerque, New Mexico.