If quantum physics is true and there is a universe for all possible histories and futures, then there is an infinite number of universes where you're banging Emma Watson.
That's a joke on the internet, but not too far removed from reality. And once you realize that, it really shifts your perspective. I mean, this universe—it's a little unimpressive, isn't it? Unimportant in the grand scheme of things.
I think I speak without undue ego when I say that I'm a genius. My inventions, without getting too technical and without being too impenetrable to the layman, have probably been used by you in the last twenty-four hours. Especially if you've flown in an airplane. But then think about it. Really think about it. What's the point? What could I invent that would really change the world?
Clean energy? We have that. No one wants to use it when they can ride around in an SUV. A cure for cancer? We somewhat have that, the insurance companies just charge a king's ransom for it. This universe, this Earth, it's kinda going down the drain. Any positivity is drowned out by stupidity, greed, and hatred. I don't know how yours is doing, but mine couldn't even make a decent Superman movie.
So don't change the world.
Change
the
world.
With that in mind, I built a device that would allow me to take the place of my doppelganger in an alternate universe, shortly before he was to have sex with, well, anyone. Don't feel too bad for him. In an infinite variety of universes, there were an infinite number of times where he got to do the deed. By creating more alternate universes, I was promoting the healthy grow of the multiverse.
This all might seem very complicated, by the way. It was, but don't worry about it. You would have to be the one percentile of a one percentile to understand it, so you might as well accept that such a device is possible and that I built one. After all, would you rather hear a dissertation on creating just the casing for a transdimensional frequency modulator, or would you like to hear about banging Emma Watson?
My name is Chad Longwood. This is how I banged Emma Watson.
***
Chad arrived on Earth-518920 on July 16th, 2016, a short distance outside of Bostonia, on the road to Red Bay. He looked himself over hurriedly, examining the body he had 'Leapt' into. He didn't want to stick around if it were badly damaged, sex with Emma Watson or not. After all, if he died in an alternate universe, he was still dead.
His body was much the same as ever, with signs of regular exercise and good diet, though he detected some signs of malnourishment. This him could use a steak dinner. There were also a surprising amount of scars. He felt his face and detected a long one, crawling like a worm from one eyebrow down to the line of his jaw. It didn't hurt, but it was an odd feeling, knowing you were somewhat disfigured.
The clothing was body armor and BDUs, with well-stocked utility belt, vest pockets, cargo pants. Some of the items he had absolutely no idea what they were; one looked like a garage door opener. The guns, though, those he could fathom. A quick check of all his items showed that he was low on ammo, and the guns themselves weren't in the best of condition. Scavenged items, Chad guessed. The best that he (or 'he') could manage under the circumstances.
That, and the landscape, convinced him this was a post-apocalyptic world—one of many he had seen while testing his device. The road was cracked and ruptured in several places, with numerous wrecks and burnt-out husks along the sides of the road. Road signs had been bulleted to the point of illegibility, with new messages spray-painted on the sides of SUVs, the road, wherever. The closest one to Chad read 'fifty kilometers to Red Bay'. Well, whatever other problems with universe had, at least it was using the metric system.
Having established all this, Chad took a moment to wonder what he was supposed to do. That was a bit the problem with throwing yourself around the space-time continuum like this. He knew the circumstances existed to make having sex with Emma Watson highly probable, but not exactly what actions would lead to that outcome. If he started walking and went in the wrong direction, it was possible he'd miss her entirely.
It was a stupid problem to have, he'd admit, but still a problem. Even for all his technical know-how, he couldn't build a compass to point him at Emma Watson, or a computer that could predict what he should say or do to get her into bed. Probably for the best. That seemed like the kind of thing that would lead to someone trying to conquer the universe instead of having a little fun.
The ground rattled suddenly. Chad looked around again, catching a plume of dirt raising in the distance, skewing as its head moved against the wind. Then he saw the source coming over a hill. It was a rover, something like an RV but with obscenely large construction vehicle treads instead of wheels. They were off-road, disturbing the earth in vast quantities, some ridiculously over-cylindered engine bellowing as the rover came toward him.
Chad hoped this was a situation where he was supposed to wait rather than run.
He wasn't much disappointed. The rover came to a stop—it was the size of a train car, with a .50-cal turret on top manned by a familiar-looking nerd. It was Kaley Cuoco, only she wasn't wearing the latest fashions. She wore a battered Star Wars T-shirt, Vader's mug in white on a black background, a similarly dark pair of glasses smartly seated on the bridge of her nose, fingerless gloves caressing callused hands as she aimed the .50 at him. Her short blonde hair was the same as ever, though.
"Don't move!" she shouted, racking the turret.
Chad didn't move.
He could see a woman in the driver's seat, though the glass was reinforced by chainlink fencing like a band would play behind at a rough bar. She was familiar too. Scarlett Johansson, though it took him a moment to place her. She looked like a punk rocker, her head shaved into a Mohawk with stripes of pink and black, a leather vest over a halved Sex Pistols tee. She kept her hands on the wheel and revved the engine as if in warning.
Then Emma Watson came out, an H&K trained on him. Her he recognized. Her hair was cut shortly, neatly a crewcut, with kohl or greasepaint marring her face, darkening her eyes into an eighties, raccoonish look. She wore a flak jacket over a white tee, her trim body nearly swallowed up by the armor, but then she wore daisy dukes and kneepads on her legs, leaving them almost entirely bare and sleek down to a pair of army boots. It was surprisingly sexual, seeing her legs a little scratched up, Band-Aided in places, not the glossy finish of a photoshoot or a magazine spread. Real, tangible.
"Please be needing me to repopulate the Earth," Chad said.
"Chad Longwood!" Emma shouted. "You're under arrest for the murders of the Lower Council of Bostonia! Come quietly or we'll open fire."
Suddenly all the guns he was carrying made a lot more sense. Still, trying to quick-draw on Emma Watson seemed counterintuitive to having sex with her—not to mention staying alive. He raised his hands compliantly. "I surrender!"
A little surprised, Emma glanced to Kaley on the turret. "Got him covered?"
"One move and he's split in half."
Chad gulped. Emma pulled a plasticuffs from a holder on her vest. "Alright, Longwood, keep your hands up and keep still! One wrong move and, well, you heard the woman."
Chad nodded, freezing in place as Emma came up to him cautiously, then rapidly grabbed his hands, planted him on the ground, wrenched his arms behind his back, and cuffed him. Her practiced hands skittered over his body, relieving him of the more lethal items. Chad watched his weapons, and a few he'd missed, laid out in front of his face as he laid on his belly with Emma's knee in his back.
"You know, are you sure you've got the right guy?" he asked. "I really don't believe in violence."
"If you don't, you could've told us so a year ago and saved us a lot of trouble." Emma checked another pocket, drawing out something that looked like it'd used to be a flip-phone before developing cancer. "Jesus, he's got a decryptor!"
"Does the Council know about that?" Kaley called back.
"They're gonna. That's another ten years in slam—maybe another five K in bounty for us." Emma wrenched Chad up to his feet. "Not bad, Longwood."
"I was holding it for a friend," Chad said confidently.
"Move!" Emma ordered him with a shove forward.
Drawing a plastic bag from her belt—she had a whole bundle of them wadded up inside one bad—she loaded all his confiscated gear and followed after him as he went to the rover. He hesitated in the opening and he felt the butt of her rifle harshly strike him in the base of the spine. He went in, wondering if he should activate his device and go back to dreary, ordinary life. If he even could without rousing their suspicions.
The interior of the rover was a dorm room on wheels. The 'homework' of maps and life hacks and instruction manuals crashed together with posters, magazine pin-ups, even framed pictures. It was almost claustrophobic in how it overwhelmed.
Emma took him by the shoulders and planted him in a chair before he could take it in, strapping him in next. "Don't move from this spot," she told him. "Kaley!" He saw her coming down from a kind of attic door that presumably led to the turret emplacement. Emma tossed her the flip-phone. "Check that. I'll report to the High Council. Scarlett!" She slammed her fist against a slab of a door at the end of the room. Like in a jet liner, it separated the cabin from the cockpit. "Get us back to Red Bay. I'm not sure which is worse, being out here or going in there with him in our hold."
"So let's shove him into the council's laps, get our money, and go on a bender somewhere," Kaley said. She was sitting at a built-in work desk, cajoling a laptop to life. "The sooner the better."
Emma went to the wall, pulling open another console, typing into it as they got under way. Her fingers worked fast—Chad saw GoPro footage flitter by on the screen. For the first time he noticed the cameras the women wore on their body armor. He guessed it was uploading to whoever the High Council were.
"Hey, listen—" Chad started. "Assuming for a second I'm innocent, you mind telling me what I'm accused of?"
"We told you," Emma said stridently. "You killed the Lower Council of Bostonia. Five venerated leaders of the safe zone. All because you thought they were corrupt."
"Okay," Chad said. "So were they?"
"If you had proof, I'm sure you would've brought it to the High Council—"
"How do you know the High Council isn't corrupt?"
"How do we know this isn't all in your sick head?"
A slot opened in the blast door. Scarlett's voice came through. "Council got your report. You were right, they are willing to up the bounty. They'd also like us to go after Red Forest."
"The gangbanger?" Emma asked. "When we've got
Chad Longwood
sewed up?"
"There's been a sighting. They worry there won't be another chance like this again and we're the only rover in the area. It's worth another fifteen K to them."
Emma sighed. "Kaley?"
Kaley looked up from her laptop as if she'd barely noticed the new wrinkle in their situation. "Is... is he alone?"
"Recon says yeah," Scarlett replied.
"Okay then. It's easy money. I mean, we just caught Longwood—how hard can this be?"
***
It was a bumpy ride, and driving while handcuffed was a surprisingly uncomfortable experience. Chad hadn't realized how cozy it was being able to move your hands and brace yourself. Nonetheless, there were distractions. His seat was opposite a chainlinked window, and he could see out at the countryside. Apparently he'd been in a good patch. Off the road, there was just lots of dirt. Scorched earth, with toothpick structures of winnowed trees, destroyed vehicles, bones picked clean.
"What happened here?" Chad asked.
"Don't you know?" Emma replied. She was bored, had to be with Kaley for companionship. The woman was still working on the flip phone.
"Did I do that too?"
Emma gave him a look. "Aliens crash landed here. The impact of their ship alone ended civilization. Then they started breeding. I think I'll give you a pass on that one."
"I don't know. I can be pretty good at breeding."
Emma rolled her eyes.
