CHAPTER 1: INITIALIZATION

Planet Earth, Year 2023 CE

“Alright, class! Settle down, everyone,” our physics teacher, Mr. Morris says. “I know that it’s almost the end of the day and you’re all excited to go on spring break, but I still have ten minutes of lecture left before you’re let out. Now then, I want to go over one final example of the conservation of momentum. Suppose we have an elastic collision between two objects, each with a mass of one kilogram…”

He drones on and my hand idly takes notes as he goes over his example, but I don’t pay too much attention. He’s a good teacher and his lectures and activities are fun and all, but it’s always the teachers who love what they teach that feel the need to use every minute of class time to the fullest. And on the Friday before we go on a week of holiday too! Just our luck.

“Psst!” my friend Chloe says. She is sitting just to my right, and seems equally uninterested in listening to the example problem. She motions to my backpack. It buzzes, thankfully not loud enough to draw our teacher’s ire.

I sneak my hand inside and glance at the text.

Hey, Sera, my car had to be taken into the shop for maintenance and it’s still not ready. Hate to be a bother, but can you drive me home?

I purse my lips at that. Why not just do it over the weekend, I wonder? But I guess that’s just how things work out sometimes. Especially given that her dad works long hours and is frequently away on business trips. Never tells anyone exactly what he does, either. Not even Chloe seems to know. She thinks he’s involved with the NSA, but personally, I bet he’s doing some super classified work with alien technology.

I turn to her and give her a thumbs up as I slide my phone back into my backpack.

My interaction with her is short lived as Mr. Morris snaps my attention back to him.

“Well, Miss Sera,” he says. “Since you are so absorbed with your phone and obviously already know how to solve this problem, would you be so kind as to give an explanation for the next thing to do?”

I look at the equation for a few seconds before responding. “Mr. Morris, we need to also include our equation for conservation of energy. Since the collision is assumed to be perfectly elastic, we can ignore losses due to friction and heat, and instead set the sum of kinetic energies of the two balls before and after the collision to be equal to each other. From there, we’ll conserve momentum in both the x- and y- coordinates, and calculate each ball’s total velocity using the Pythagorean Theorem.”

“That’s… correct. I’m glad to see that you were paying attention after all.”

I lean my head down to hide my grin. Physics has always come easy to me. Almost as though I really have seen it all before.

“Alright, class,” he continues. “That’s all the time I have for today, so we'll go ahead and pause and reconvene the Monday after this upcoming one. Please remember that I did assign some homework yesterday, so make sure you complete the assignment over the break, and I will see you all next time.”

As if specially choreographed through two decades of teaching, the bell rang the instant he finished his end-of-class spiel, and we all wasted no time in getting the hell out of there.

Ah, wonderful spring break! The perfect time to take a vacation down to the beach and party! Alas, my spoilsport of a mom says that I’m ‘too young’ to go partying, and won’t let me go unless I pay my own way. And I can’t do that because I have to keep my GPA up so my offer to college doesn’t get yanked away! And any money I do get has to be saved to pay to attend, because of course, I only got a half-ride scholarship. So, here I am, stuck in this podunk town instead of going to the beach like my friends! Just my luck.

Damned bursar is running a shitty scam! College should not be forty thousand gods-damned dollars per year! I clench my fist in frustration before sighing and letting go.

“You okay, Sera?” Chloe asks as we stop at her locker. “You seem tense.”

“It’s fine. Just a little frustrated that I’m stuck here over break.”

“You too?”

“Wait, I thought you were heading down to Houston and leaving tomorrow morning!”

Chloe shakes her head. “That was the plan, but then I got a call from Dad the night before last and he says he’s going to be in town for a couple days. First time I’ve seen him all year, so yeah. Plus, I gotta be here for my bestie!”

“Thanks, Chloe. You’re the best.”

Chloe locks up her locker and grins. “I know, Sera.” She gives me a wink.

We step outside, greeted by a gust of chilly early spring air that sends my blonde locks flying in my face. I bat my hair aside and try to adjust my eyes to the bright, sunny skies outside when a wave of nausea assails me. I keel over against the door, moving aside to let another pair of students pass. One of them seems vaguely familiar, but I don’t recognize the other.

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“You okay?” Chloe asks. “Did something happen?”

“I don’t know. I feel sick all of the sudden.”

“Do you need some…” Chloe motions to her lower abdomen.

I blush. “It shouldn’t be that time until late next week! But if you have an ibuprofen, I’d appreciate it.”

We head back inside. She slips a red pill into my hand, which I down in front of the nearby water fountain. As soon as I take the medicine, I realize that the pain has already evaporated. Did I develop some sort of allergic reaction to sunlight? I think I remember something like that from last year’s bio class.

Wait. I’m not becoming a vampire or some shit? Gods, I hope not! Those are so ten years ago! Calm yourself, Sera! There are no documented cases whatsoever of anything as asinine as turning into a vampire.

“You want to sit down for a moment, Sera? I don’t want you to try to drive if you’re not feeling well. Or maybe I can drive your car?”

“Can you drive a stick?”

“You have a stick in 2023, Sera?” she exclaims. “What kind of a beater do you have now?”

“The kind that costs five hundred dollars with cheap-as-dirt insurance so I can save enough to go to college!”

“Sera, ever heard the expression ‘Penny wise, pound foolish?’” She cajoles me as we sit down at a nearby bench not far from the principal’s office. “It doesn’t matter if you get the cars dirt cheap if you go through them every six months. Spend a few thousand on something that’ll last more than a year or two; I promise, it’ll make your life easier too.”

I restrain myself from muttering a rude comment about how it must be nice to come from a family with money. My parents aren’t doing amazing, but they’ve kept a roof over my head and I’ve never gone hungry. That, and her father is only around a few times per year, so. Yeah, we’ve each got our own demons.

“I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”

“See, Sera! The fact you know there’s going to be a next time shows that you know deep down that I’m right about you constantly buying shit cars!”

I roll my eyes a bit and chuckle. “You’ve made your point, Chloe. C’mon, I’m gonna head out and see if I’m feeling well enough to drive you home.”

“Sure thing!”

We head back out the back door of the building and I blink a couple of times to adjust to the light. Whatever caused that nausea and headache is completely gone. I maintain a bit of trepidation in the back of my mind, but I try not to show it as Chloe pulls me ahead. Something doesn’t seem quite right, though it doesn’t seem like anyone else notices anything out of the ordinary.

The headache comes back, but thankfully it’s a bit weaker and subsides as quickly as it appears. We make it to my car, and Chloe stares at me incredulously.

“Seraphina Mortensen! You cannot seriously be driving this metal deathtrap around school! How did this even make it onto the parking lot?”

“Would you rather walk home?” I give her the evil eye.

Chloe mutters some obscenities under her breath as she flips me the one-fingered salute. After pouting with her arms crossed for a good twenty seconds, she finally relents and gets inside. I start up the car and we take off. Without any incident.

We drive to the nice side of town. A couple of people wearing clothes that cost entirely too much money stare at my beater, but no one does more than give me a dirty look as we pull into Chloe’s neighborhood.

“So, I hope you don’t mind me asking,” she says, “but how are things between you and Stephan? I hear he asked you out the other day.”

“He’s not interested. He’s gay. Boyfriend and all. Asked me out mostly as a cover story to keep his friends off his back.”

“Ooh. Darn, he’s cute, too.”

“Eh. Didn’t really notice.” I’m also not even sure if I like guys, but I’m definitely not ready to have that conversation.

“Don’t be afraid to see some people! You’re young, beautiful, and you have a whole life ahead of you. In six months you’ll be away for college, so why not enjoy these last couple of months? Plus, it’ll be good practice for dealing with guys before you don’t have me around to watch your back anymore.”

I nearly roll my eyes, but hold myself back. “Thanks, Chloe. For everything.”

“You don’t have to be so formal. That’s what friends are for, right?”

I smile. We pull into Chloe’s driveway and I shut off the car. As soon as I open the door, a tremendous gust of wind blows, knocking me back onto the driver’s seat and slamming the door behind me. I turn to Chloe, who is frozen in a catatonic state. I call to her. No response. I gently shake her to check for responsiveness. She doesn’t flinch or even make a sound as I touch her.

My heart starts to palpitate as I try to remember what little first aid I’ve been taught. But before I can start reaching for my phone to call a paramedic, the world dims slightly and strange words appear near the top of my vision.

[Warning: System Initialization in Progress. Local anomalies may occur. Please stand by.]

System? Is this some sort of… No, I’ve got to be hallucinating. I pinch myself. It hurts. Good, not asleep. I take a deep breath and tap my fingers against my palm, feeling each pressure divot. I count the coins in the tray in my car. Three quarters, two dimes, four nickels, eleven pennies. I take a deep breath and wince from the smell of day-old fries. Must’ve missed one when I dropped the sack containing last night’s dinner tipped over.

Despite my attempts at grounding, more words appear.

[Error detected during System Initialization. Implementing anomalous data as Unique Trait: [Touched by the Multiverse]]

[System Initialization completed. Status menu enabled.]

I glance at the status screen in the corner of my eye.

[Name: Seraphina Mortensen]

[Level: 1]

[Health: 100 / 100]; [Ether: 40 / 40]; [Experience: 0; To Next: 20]

[Stats: Strength: 12; Speed: 12; Vitality: 12; Mind: 17]

[Unique Trait: [Touched by the Multiverse]. Your mind has been touched by the vastness beyond space and time, and you’ve gained a glimpse at what lies at the outer edge of possibility. All Experience gain increased by fifty percent. Stacks multiplicatively with other modifiers.]

The world returns to normal, and Chloe awakens with a perplexed look on her face. She shakes her head and tries to reorient herself. The two of us stare at one another.

“What the F?” we both say in unison.