Chapter 8: How I Came Back from the Future and Created My Own Erotic Utopia in the Present
It takes me less time than you might think to recover from my rapturous experience of everything, everywhere, all at once (yeah, I just had to get that reference in somewhere!). The twins and the city together help me to process everything that's happened so far. I start to settle back into my comfortable routine.
But then one ordinary day, the twins come by to tell me they've got some news from the Timesync research group. The scientists have properly calibrated the equipment that will send me home. (Actually, I felt the exact moment that one of them had their big "eureka!" when I was above the city, though it seemed like just one of many peaks I was feeling at the time.) Since then, they've worked in a white-hot fervour to test the inspired concept, and to everyone's delight, it works. The twins tell me the research group is now confident they can send me back, with reasonable certainty, to a mere millisecond after I left, so that it will be like I was never gone. Even if someone was looking right at me, they wouldn't see so much as a flicker. Not that there was anyone around when I vanished. It was still the middle of the fucking pandemic and the suburban streets were like a ghost town.
Clearly, I don't want to go back. The twins feel my disappointment, and the fear that underlies it, as soon as they give me the "good" news.
"Ah. I understand," Raine says at once.
"You're used to life here in the city now." Sunni continues. "It'll be tough to go back to the shitty situation you came from."
I nod, feeling tears well up in my eyes.
"Can't I stay?" I whimper, sounding pathetic even to my own ears. Both of them move to embrace me, pressing their soft, warm bodies to mine in comfort.
"Of course, darling, you can stay if that's what you want!" Says Sunni.
"We would never throw you out against your will." Says Raine.
I feel a ray of hope pierce through the fog of my fears. But in that illuminating light, I can see the gaping pitfall in my decision.
"What about my parents, my sister, all my friends...my houseplants...?"
Raine and Sunni look at each other sadly, then back to me.
"You'll never see them again." Says Raine.
"And they'll never see you." Adds Sunni. "They'll think you've gone missing and search for you. They won't be able to find anything except what you left behind."
"Hopefully they'll take care of your houseplants. But we can't guarantee it."
I suspected as much. I don't want to hurt the people I love like that, I really don't. But for a moment, I allow myself to believe they'd get over the loss eventually. They'd come to accept that I died and went to heaven, and in a way it's true, I'm in heaven right now, so why should I leave if I'm finally happy, the way my parents and friends always wanted me to be...?
Then the twins throw me another curveball.
"Also, any contributions to society or changes in people's lives that you made in our past--or, things you're going to do in your future--won't happen any more."
I stop dead in my happy fantasy tracks, staring at them.
"Wait...what does that mean? If I don't go back, will it create, like, some kind of time paradox, or an alternate branch in the multiverse, or something like that? What
actually
happens if I stay?"
