James awoke with a smile on his face. It was Sunday; he’d have all day to explore the other world. One advantage of a humiliating life, living in a shabby studio apartment and having virtually no friends, was that it gave him time to pursue his own projects. And the possibilities unleashed by his uncle’s ring spread out before him, like a fractal in one of those nerd hobbies interesting only to him.

After coffee and breakfast, he slipped on the ring and skimmed through Alan’s journal. Most of it still mystified him; he didn’t understand the significance of tulips, unique stunt jumps, or much of anything. James rehashed the section on tutorials for beginners, then continued reading. Following it were some notes on missions; it named the gangs he was introduced to yesterday, then continued with people and groups he hadn’t heard of. It was difficult to remember any of it, when he couldn’t anchor it in his own experience.

He stopped on the next page and stared; his eyes widened. It had a table of assets! He pulled the hanging folder from his desk and quickly thumbed through the deeds; their names matched up with the table entries. But each entry also had the now-familiar pair of numbers. He smiled; if he could only figure out the coordinate system, he would be able to track them down. James grabbed the journal and the stack of deeds, and darted out of his front door.

He was halfway down the stairs when he suddenly halted; the journal and deeds were gone! He retraced his steps; he hadn’t dropped them. He searched in the plants under the stairway; they were nowhere to be found. With a lump in his throat, he went back to his apartment, unsure of what to do next.

The journal was back on his bookshelf, where he first stored it. Leaping to his desk, he found the hanging folder with the deeds had returned somehow. James frowned; while he was glad he hadn’t lost anything, this limitation perplexed him. How was he supposed to take information between the two worlds? How had Alan? Did that mean the deeds were copies? Where were the originals?

After sitting on the couch for several minutes, his face buried in his hands, he had an idea. If writing materials existed in the other world, maybe they could make the trip. He left his apartment, walked down the street until he found the first convenience store, and went inside.

There were aisles and aisles of typical convenience-store fare–beer, soda, chips, candy, and some cheeseburgers in foil bags. Above the counter were rows of cigarettes. Not knowing what else to do, James approached the cashier, who was staring forward, blankly. “How can I help you, sir?” he piped up immediately.

James took a chance. “Writing implements?”

“I don’t understand,” the cashier replied quickly.

James stewed a little. “You know, for making notes?”

“Notes?” The cashier pointed away. “Aisle 3, right side, near the end.” He resumed his blank stare.

Shrugging, James moved to that location, and found several packages, each labeled “Notes”. They all appeared to contain paper, pencils, and pens. He grabbed one such package, and watched his total cash decrease by $10. Smiling, he left the store, thanking the cashier as he did, who continued to stare blankly, not reacting.

Returning home, he ran a quick test; he copied one entry out of the journal with his new acquisition, then took that page outside. The paper, and its contents, remained! He spent the next hour laboriously making a copy of the table of assets, grousing how this wasn’t how he envisioned spending his Sunday morning.

With his copied list, plus some blank pages and a pen for new notes, he hopped into his car. James read over the list of assets; how was he supposed to make use of these numbers?

Without fanfare, all but the first three coordinate-pairs went gray. He stared at the first of the three remaining; it suddenly glowed red, then a red arrow appeared in his vision, in addition to the gray, blue, and yellow ones he always saw. Smiling, he started his car and pulled into the street.

The red arrow didn’t change direction much, but it consistently pointed slightly north of east. James soon found a wide boulevard, and followed it until it inexplicably turned south. Backtracking and searching for a while, he finally found a road that continued east, and he followed it for a while, until the arrow veered sharply north.

After locating a wide northbound avenue, he followed it; it led out of the business district and toward a boat harbor, where the arrow veered to the northwest. James frowned; there was no ocean within hundreds of miles of where he lived, nor were there any lakes. What was going on? Driving past the marina, he saw the arrow veer northeast; his target was definitely in the marina. He found a spot to park in the nearly empty lot, grabbed his notes, and got out.

The people here were mostly dressed as if they were on vacation; a few large pickup trucks prowled the lanes, towing large boats behind them. James noticed there were only five or six variants of people, and all of the pickup trucks and boats were the same, except for the paint color. He chuckled to himself as he zeroed in on his target, which turned out to be a house on the marina.

The target lay in the front yard, a transparent red cylinder that seemed to stretch up forever. It vanished the instant he touched it, as did the red arrow. At the same time, a yellow, downward-pointing wedge appeared by the house’s front door. Taking the cue, he walked into it, and found himself inside.

The house’s interior was very clean and orderly; the floors mostly consisted of gleaming marble tile. He made note of a living room, kitchen, and guest bathroom; upstairs he discovered two smaller bedrooms and a larger master bedroom. All the rooms in the house were tastefully decorated and impeccably spotless. Leaving through the front door, he approached the garage, which opened for him automatically. He gasped as what he saw there.

From left to right, he beheld a gleaming black luxury car, a red dune buggy, and a blue roadster. Leaning up against the wall was a yellow motorcycle, looking like the high-powered type he’d heard described as a “crotch rocket”. But his eyes came back to the black luxury car; it looked like the Cadillac of his dreams.

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He was about to get in when another thought occurred to him. James heard the garage door close automatically as he jogged down the side of house to the back. There, he found a private dock, and bobbing gently in the water was a small white runabout, maybe fourteen feet long. It featured an enclosed cabin, a small deck with built-in seats, and a metal railing running around the prow and along the top. Its clean paint job seemed to gleam in the sun. Somehow, it wasn’t anchored or tied down; it seemed to stay in place without any mooring. Grinning, he got on board and started the engine; it roared to life, then settled down to deep rumbles. Pushing it forward slightly, he eased it out of the dock.

Turning right, he puttered down the waterway, getting a feel for steering a boat. Unlike a car, the surface was nearly frictionless; he had to reverse the engine to get it to stop. Other boaters passed by him, moving much more quickly; their wakes caused his boat to rock. Glumly, he decided he needed more practice before taking the boat out, especially on what appeared to be such a busy day. Slowly, he turned it around and prepared to return to his dock.

A large jolt nearly knocked him off his feet. He gaped as he watched a boat pass by, a huge scrape now on its side. “Hey!” he yelled. “You hit me, you jerk!” But the other boater didn’t react; he continued to drive away. James knew he didn’t have the skills to chase after him, so he somberly returned to his dock and eased the boat into its berth.

Jumping out, he surveyed the damage. It was more than just a scrape, the side was cracked, no longer watertight. He let out an anguished cry; how was he supposed to fix this? The note-package had cost him $10, so he only had $20 left to his name. Angrily, he returned to his house to look for a way to call the police.

Before long, he realized the interior of the house was mostly nonfunctional; many of the doors were set into the walls, and none of the kitchen cabinets opened. The wall-mounted phone was one solid piece; the handset couldn’t be removed. Grumbling to himself, he grabbed a fresh sheet of note-paper and his pen, and returned to the dock, so he could make a record of the damage. Hopefully the marina had a repair shop.

His eyes widened as he approached the boat. The damage was gone! His runabout simply bobbed lightly in the water; there was no sign that anything had happened to it. Confused but relieved, he decided to take his luxury car for a spin. Grabbing his notes, he pulled out of the garage and prepared to exit the marina.

The radio blared the usual disgraceful nonsense; James changed stations until it arrived on “user MP3 player”. A pretentious progressive-rock song eased its way out of the speakers. He smiled; not having the typical luxury-car owner’s taste for classical music, a twenty-minute-long, meandering song from the 1970s was the perfect alternative.

As he turned onto the main driveway, he saw a yellow, downward-pointing wedge in front of a nearby building. The sign in front read “Boating school”. He smiled; he’d have to take them up on that some other time.

While waiting to leave the marina, he glanced at the second asset on his list; as before, the entry glowed red, and a red arrow appeared in his vision. It pointed south; he wound through boulevards and avenues, finally ending up on a rural highway leading into a series of rolling hills. After following a few winding roads, he stopped at a rustic-looking wooden house; with its wide covered porch and the myriad of glass windows, it almost looked like a hunting lodge.

Inside, he found the ultimate in luxury pastoral living–polished wood floors, bear rugs, a myriad of couches, and three bedrooms upstairs, along with a stately master bedroom. In one corner of it, near the closet, he saw something floating in mid-air, spinning slowly. He approached it, and was surprised to find it was a hunting rifle, complete with scope. He shied back; he had never known Alan to be a hunter. So what was this doing here? He was amused to find himself indifferent about it floating.

He reached out for the rifle; it appeared in his hands. Almost unwilling to believe; he touched it to his pants pocket; it disappeared inside. Chuckling, he touched his pants pocket again; the rifle reappeared in his hands. He smiled as he put it back into his pocket, then trotted outside to check out the garage.

He wasn’t disappointed. James found an off-road Jeep-like vehicle, a four-wheeled ATV, a snowmobile on a trailer, and…he stopped and gaped, goosebumps sprouting everywhere.

Taking up the right side of the garage was a military tank.

He approached it slowly; it appeared to be the real thing. He entered through the top hatch and found a fully functioning driver’s station, complete with controls for the machine gun and the turret. He checked the ammunition supply; there were thousands of bullets and several dozen artillery shells.

Shaking visibly, he exited the tank and left the garage, looking back to gawk at it. Why did Alan have a tank? Where did he get it? How did he acquire all that ammunition? Was he involved with some sort of militia? He wondered if he had known his uncle at all.

As before, the house was mostly nonfunctional, the doors and cabinets mostly for show. And he still hadn’t found any money, or any sign of valuables, not even a safe. Feeling slightly dispirited, he got back into his car, highlighted the last entry on his list, and followed the red arrow northeast, back into the city.

The last asset was a rundown auto-repair shop in a seedy part of town; exploring inside, it appeared to be deserted. However, when he pulled his car up to the repair bay, it opened automatically, and he drove inside. On the wall was a list of modifications he could make to his car–paint jobs, hydraulics, nitrous boosting, tires, hubcaps, and…his eyes stopped on the last entry.

One of the options was to install a bomb? Were there live bombs somewhere in the shop? He hadn’t seen any; most of the shop’s features were just for show. He tried to make sense of it all, but couldn’t; it just seemed so violent and dangerous. He backed his car out of the repair bay and jogged to the garage; as expected, it opened for him automatically. He was taken aback by what he saw inside.

From left to right, he found a police motorcycle, a police sedan, a SWAT van, and a black government SUV. Nervous sweat began to pour out; how did Alan amass such a collection? He couldn’t think of a reason that didn’t involve stealing them from police stations, perhaps even killing police officers. He backed away quickly, the door closing as he did.

James took a deep breath. The good news was, his uncle was a rich man in this world, and he had only looked at the three available assets. He wasn’t sure why he couldn’t access the others, but at least there were others, and hopefully he would discover how to find them. His face creased with worry; the bad news was, his uncle was some sort of heavily-armed, violent, criminal sociopath. James wondered what had turned him down such a dark path. Would it happen to him, too?

The other bad news, he realized, was that he still hadn’t located any cash. Whatever money Alan had was apparently locked up in assets, and many of them were possibly stolen. So, for the time being, he was destitute.

He glanced idly at the three arrows in his vision; he had almost learned to ignore them. But now, they seemed like his only option. For the time being, he knew of no other way to make money in this world.

He sighed heavily and prepared to follow the gray arrow.