The brisk morning air pushed the smoke away from his face. The old chair sitting at an angle to view the first vestiges of the November sunrise. A sharp blare of police and ambulance sirens cut through the early fall fog as the man exhales another cloud of smoke. A sigh leaves his mouth just as twilight officially becomes morning with the rising of the sun, seeming resigned to some dreary fate. The man stays seated as the morning fog lifts with the sun, each passing moment ticks off another dreary moment of the man's life, the march of time never ceasing.
"Time to get ready." The man's nasally voice breaks through the morning air. The feelings of his resignation reverberating through the fog. He slowly stands, cleans the walnut pipe over the balcony's railing, then places the chair back against the south-facing wall.
He mused to himself about this routine he had taken up when he had moved into this house five years ago. Having only deviated on mornings that were exceptionally wet, cold, or he had to be out of town.
He collected his pipe kit, and stepped inside. Setting the pipe on a stand along side four other pipes, each meant for a different smoke, but each well used. He set the kit down in front of the small stand, and shortly found himself tracing the wear on the handrail as he stepped down to the main floor to get ready for his day.
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He didn't remember anything after stepping out of the shower. He looked around and saw only grey. No undulations like the morning fog of early twilight, only static grey. Even his own body was grey, as though it was the only color available. His hair was short, but full. His body looked no different than it had in the mirror as he got in the shower.
"Welcome, Jesse." A tenor voice, feeling of power, said to him. He promptly looked around to see who had called him. "There is no need to look around. You will not see me."
"There are laws against kidnapping." The man said. His voice sounding much less nasally than it had on the balcony, so much so, that even the man was surprised by his own voice.
"Then it is good that you are not in your own dimension. There are no laws here." The voice paused for several seconds, only beginning to speak again once the man moved his mouth to say something, interrupting him. "You failed your destiny. Failed so badly that the god in charge of your dimension is to be held accountable, as they didn't even present you with the opportunities needed to even fulfill the first step."
"And what was my destiny?" The man asks.
"To prove Higgs Boson right. To discover quantum travel, to prove its viability before you turned 40."
"I am thirty-nine." The man says plainly.
"One year is not enough on that planet to prove viability, or efficacy, or even safety. And the god over there is being held accountable for it."
"So why am I here? Why am I even being told about this?" The man's exasperation could only be expressed by his body language during this outburst.
"Because, you are going to be helping another dimension prove it." The voice said proudly. "And in turn, the knowledge you gain from My Dimension, will be able to be proven in yours."
"Your....Does that mean you are a god?"
"Yes. My Dimension has no name for me, but my existence is known. But I am not important here. There are a few reasons why I brought you here, other than just telling you about that god's failure. You see, my dimension is a bit more advanced than yours. So I need that to not be a big shock to you. But there is something else that may surprise you."
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"Okay, I can tell you are leading me on; so spill it."
"By being pulled to my dimension, and proving your Higgs Boson right, you will be given three abilities, two are kind of a given, because of what we are doing. The third, I was ordered to be given to you by those above me." The man gestured with his right hand in a circular motion that he understood to mean 'to keep going.'
"The first one will allow you to shift between dimensions. Not just yours, and mine, but any dimension. Your first time will be a random destination, but after that, it will be anywhere you have been before. You can't break the rules of that dimension, but you can come and go as you please. Do you have any questions about this?"
"Could I come back here if I have questions?"
"Yes. This is a location in my dimension I use to talk to mortals directly. It will shield you from receiving too much of my power, while also being able to talk with me. Anything else?"
"I don't know. I will have to try some stuff before I have questions."
"Okay, then moving on to the second. Ability, you will be able to converse, as though you are a native speaker, with any creatures that have a spoken language. If that language has an unspoken component, such as pheromonic, or bio-luminescent, then you will not inherently understand those."
"Understandable. So, other than just appearing in your dimension, I don't have another task?"
"Nope. Your appearance will be enough to prove my Higgs Boson right. It's up to you if you decide to do it in your own dimension or not." The voice seemed to say dismissively.
"Now, the third ability you are getting is not from this experiment. I've been told to make sure you are given this ability."
A grey window appears in front of the man. The word Character across the top of the window, with a series of sliders on one side, and an image of himself on the other.
"This is an ability that only a half of a per cent of all dimensions have, and even those only get to use a small portion of its features once in their lives. You get to use it at will, and in its fully unlocked state. But please use it when you are alone. In my dimension, and in your home dimension, people will try to dissect you if they see you use this in front of them."
"So in my own home, or here?"
"I would prefer that, but you may not have that luxury, or need to use it in an emergency, which is why you are getting it fully unlocked. Also, there are five buttons across the top, these are four presets as well as the look for your home dimension."
"So I don't need to worry about moving these sliders around?"
"Nope. Your presets will not change unless you specifically change the preset. Just think 'character' while also picturing this window, and it will appear, or disappear from your view. No one else will be able to see it anyway, but I doubt you would want it blocking your view."
The man touched on the preset button, and noticed only the first one showed the icon for male, the other four were female. He touched the 'apply preset' for the second button. He felt no changes, but upon looking down, realized his body had now indeed changed into the young black haired, 110 pound beauty shown on the second preset.
"Any chance of getting clothes?" He heard a melodic alto voice ask, realizing it as his own.
"After this transfer, you will be able to move any non-sentient items with you. This transfer you couldn't." The character window closed next to him.
"I closed the window, and I put a ninety-six hour lock on it, as well as your ability to transfer. Your language ability will work though."
"Why are you shutting them off for four days?" The melodic voice asked.
"Because everyone likes playing with new toys, and you need to be alive in four days to go back to where you belong. If you choose to come back here, you are welcome, but I need this, and I need to keep you safe until you are sent back. Good luck, and see you if you stop by again." With that, the man, now woman, found herself standing in a room with equipment she didn't recognize, and about twenty people in lab coats.
"Get a blanket over her. Now!" She heard an elderly woman shout, and a soft blanket was handed to her.
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"I wonder if I should have explained the character window a bit more?" The tenor voice asked.
"Well, she will figure it out." A baritone voice replied.
"You're in this mess because of that attitude in the first place, Mars." The Tenor voice replied.
"Well you did forget to tell her that she is 15 in that preset, and that she can't die from old age anymore. Well, she can, but only if she takes the age/time modifier off zero in the active preset."
"Shit, and I can't tell her now, unless she specifically asks me while in dimension hold."
"Now, you see how I screwed up. She is your problem now, they said I'm not allowed to talk with her at all."
"Eff you, Mars."
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