2 The First Steps

Carter Davenport. A new name for a new face.

Rising from my bed in the cosmic warehouse, I looked at my hands and saw that they were definitely younger. The roll I took for my age came up as 18, and it showed. I closed my fists over and over again and felt the individual muscles clench and tighten.

Looking up from my hands, my blurred vision cleared up, and I could see from one end of the warehouse to the other without my glasses. It's almost funny how I found my old lenses next to me. I picked them up and, looking at the shattered glass lenses, I frowned at their condition.

These glasses helped me with my vision both near and far, and now I don't need them. Yet I don't want to get rid of them; they were mine after all. It was the first item I ever bought for myself when I was 15, back then, at least. I placed them on the nightstand next to my bed and looked around the place.

Stepping out of bed, I found a single set of clothes with a small note on them that said, " A gift from a friend."-CC.

Looking at the white shirt and black jeans, I walked into my bathroom, and while I may not even need to anymore, I turned on the shower and simply let the water rush over my head and body. I felt the cold water, and yet I did not shiver. It was barely even noticeable before the warm water came on a few seconds later.

For a few minutes, I just stood in my bathroom and stared at myself in the shower mirror. I admit to having observed myself rather intensely. I had a body that most worked their entire life for, and I got it in an almost accidental fashion. But I couldn't find it in myself to feel guilty about it. Maybe it was the self-centered drawback, speaking, but I just felt right like this, like what I am is supposed to be and not anything else.

Chuckling at my inner monologue, I turned off the shower and washed up before putting the clothes on. 

Continuing my tour of my new warehouse, I saw the shelves spread across the left side of the warehouse, with the top right corner being my house and the rest of the right side having my other amenities. But half of the right side was still empty, which I assume was meant for the other purchases to go when I got them.

Walking into the first door, I entered what looked to be the most kitted-out gym I have ever seen. Treadmills, power racks, power towers, and various other machines looked almost foreign to me as I had never had the time to work out. The names I could remember were things I never even knew about before. I assume it was the warehouse itself informing me of them, as it was a part of me.

I walked around the gym, testing some of the weights to make sure they were in working order, but it was mostly just me trying to make sure that this was real and not a dream. After picking up a large weight meant for lifting, I simply held it aloft in my right hand, and while I felt some weakness, I smiled, seeing that I could lift thirty pounds with one hand.

It may not be too impressive, but to me, it was something legendary.

Putting the weight back, I wondered how often I would need to clean this place as there wasn't any mention of this place being self-cleaning. Yet, instead of feeling annoyed, I was actually happy about that as I needed something to do, and cleaning this place may be a good way to pass the time. It could take my mind off the memories pouring into my head after all.

Due to my drop in origin, I did not receive new memories, but due to the family troubles drawback, it reinforced my older memories that I would rather not talk about or think about. However, due to the drawback, they would just always be there, but as long as I didn't focus on them, it wouldn't be so bad.

I would rather have some bad memories replaying over and over again than lose this after all. It seems trade-offs will always be a thing. Looking at the ceiling, I saw some basic lighting, but what really drew my attention was the giant clock that was shown and counting down.

3650 days and counting. It didn't make any, which was nice, and now I had a way to track the time in my jumps.

Speaking of jumping, I walked out into the empty area on the right past the gym and workshop, stood at the edge of the space, and looked towards the middle. I focused my mind on the image of the center, and after a few minutes, my eyes saw darkness and then the wall.

*Crash!*

I slammed into the right wall after my teleport, and as I fell onto the floor, I groaned in some pain as I landed on my back. Turns out personal teleportation was harder than it looked.

But I couldn't let that get to me. I needed to be better, and I wanted to be better. There was no other way than being the best at what I could do. So I got back up, walked to the square space's edge, and focused on the center again.

Visualizing the center, I felt the world shift and slammed into the wall again. Grasping at my now bleeding nose, I took a second and let it settle before trying again. I could taste the iron in my mouth due to the innate velocity created by the jumps. Honestly, it was frustrating yet also enlightening in a way.

While I had a strong body, I needed to build up my skill with jumping, even though my mind kept going back to that perk I couldn't buy due to CP restraints. It would have given me a good grasp on my powers, but I needed Trackless and Inscrutable to deal with the Paladins and any power manipulators in the future. But hindsight is 20/20, after all.

Taking another breath, I let go of my nose and saw that the pain was already receding after a few minutes, and I got back into place. I looked at the center and jumped. And slammed into the same wall again.

"I can't even be mad at this point." I groaned while getting back up. The very fact that I could teleport was still setting in, after all. My mind was going in multiple different directions at once as I was contemplating jumping, visualizing the area I needed to jump, and trying to come to terms with everything that happened, among other things.

I was too scattered, but I wanted to make this work. I had to. I couldn't be anything other than the perfect. Taking another moment to breathe, I clenched my fists, remembering so many things.

But I silenced the rampant thoughts as I almost marveled at the power of these drawbacks. Usually, when your emotions are being manipulated, you can feel it, but these drawbacks just naturally feel like my own issues brought out to the forefront.

It's probably why I took them anyway. It was free points to show what was already there. Walking back to the start, I looked at the center of the empty square space and jumped.

And I slammed into a wall.

This is gonna take some time. It does make a bit of sense. After all, I wasn't the protagonist who could jump entire miles after a few hours of practice. He is probably still at school now, trying to get with that girl, Millie. Regardless, I needed to focus on myself now. David doesn't matter to me, at least not yet.

So I spent the next couple of hours trying to jump over and over again, and I continued to slam into the same wall over and over again. Eventually, I grabbed a spare exercise mat and inflated it while placing it against the nearby walls to soften the impact. After that, I still struggled to get it right, but I didn't feel as much pain as before.

It hadn't even occurred to me how much time I spent trying to jump (teleport), and as I looked at the clock on the ceiling, I saw that half a day had already passed, and I decided to take a break. I almost laughed, considering how this was probably one of the few times I could voluntarily take a break, as none of the other breaks were just due to me passing out due to exhaustion.

Walking into my kitchen, I found the fridge stocked and all the necessary equipment needed to cook. Gotta love quality of life perks as, in my mind, I held the skills of a professional chef, handyman, and, weirdly, a set of skills relating to being a good butler. But it did help with dealing with cutlery as I would be the first to say how shit I was as a cook.

I mean, I managed to burn water. That was not a fun day, to say the least. Now, I was slicing and dicing food as if I had done this my whole life. Even I found myself entirely engrossed by the process in both a small bit of all as well as a small bit of happiness at the level of skill I had. I had almost gotten used to just eating tasteless pre-prepared meals from supermarkets.

It got so bad that I eventually had to get some that were past their due date, as well as eat some MRIs, and those were just awful. But terrible food choices aside, I placed the ingredients into the bowl and began cooking the broth to make a simple pasta and tomato soup. The smell of vegetables and onions spread across the room as I placed them all into various other bowls and sections.

My hands were flying across the counter before I placed the soup on top of the oven and began heating it up. I let it heat for five minutes before turning off the stove and lifting the lid of the bowl. I smelled the result, and it was amazing. Taking the bowl, I poured some of it into a smaller bowl, picked up my spoon, and took a sip.

It was glorious—the taste of real food. I almost forgot how amazing it was just to sit down and eat. The silence made it all the better as I could think to myself about how to move forward. According to the jump document, I still needed to scout out my pad and apparently work at my new job, which would allow me time for myself. I almost laughed as I surfed my new memories.

In this life, I was a day trader. The concept was so forging that I struggled to wrap my head around it. Me, a guy who never even graduated high school, was a high-end day trader. At least I knew a path to go from here. Also, I wasn't the most attentive guy to the economy, and I knew what companies to invest in.

Profession - 100 CP:

Something to keep the lights on. You have a stable, well-paying, safe job somewhere that tends to require surprisingly little effort and allows you to take strange amounts of time off. It's basically a free income.

Currently, the date was December 21st, 2008, and Apple had come out with the iPhone a year prior, but it hadn't really made headway yet, so the stocks were currently low in terms of pricing, and video sites like YouTube had made some headway but a buy-in there would be amazing. Not even mentioning bitcoin and other online currencies. 

The possibilities were endless, but one thing at a time. I first needed to get jumping down so I would not accidentally get myself outed as a jumper in the event that my emotions got too out of control. I saw from the movie how damaging a jump could be, as when jumping, a small wormhole is created that sucks in any nearby objects, and while I know I won't have that issue much, it was still a possibility.

I had to be better than that. While I could eventually do anything I wanted, I needed to stay as down to Earth as I could, and while I was superior to nearly everyone on the planet, I knew that there were worse things out there. It's almost ironic as the jump's very existence shows such beings' great power as they can freely give out paths to power while feeling entirely unthreatened.

These beings probably knew my life from beginning to end and chose me for a reason I probably couldn't even understand at this point. But if I focused on the possible, I would lose out on the present, so after finishing my soup, I placed the rest in the fridge and continued practicing.

Walking from my kitchen to the empty space, I looked at the circle I made from various weights and focused, visualized, and jumped. And I landed right next to the circle. A genuine smile passed on my face in an instant as I realized how I was off by a few inches. But it was progress, and I had time. So I then tried to return to the edge and nearly fell off my balcony.

Gripping the handlebars, I breathed heavily, seeing the drop and considering if a jumper on the jump chain had ever died from falling in their warehouse. I backed off and tried again. And after I jumped, I saw I was a few centimeters closer.

Every jump made things easier, and after a few hours, I was teleporting in and out of the circle. I then took a weight, threw it off the balcony, jumped to the lower level, and caught it at the bottom. Holding the weight, I gripped it in my right hand and nodded to myself.

I jumped back to the top floor and went to return the weights to where I had found them. At this point, picking up after myself has just been a skill ingrained in me after working so many retail jobs and dealing with people dumping all of their stuff everywhere. I admit it made me a bit of a clean freak, and everything needed to be perfect or at least symmetrical.

Speaking of being symmetrical, I was reminded of the fact that I now had a new place to check out, and as I walked over to the doors, I grabbed a knife from my kitchen before stretching out my hand and opening the portal to the real world. It looked like a swirling blue and gray vortex that then sucked me in, and in an instant, I had turned a full 360 degrees and found nothing.

Well, if you could consider a penthouse view, nothing. I did not lower the knife as I slowly crept through the home and went from room to room, searching everywhere for any sign of trouble. After methodically searching for about fifteen minutes, I found nothing and felt embarrassed about how I had just snuck around my own home.

Thankfully, the silence could never speak of what happened here.

I then returned to the main room and found the entire wall opposite of it to be made of glass with a spiral staircase ascending to the next level of this place. The place was covered in white and gray furniture and rugs, and the outside view was amazing. The natural lighting gave me a decent amount of sunlight through the windows that covered the entire left wall. 

Walking over to the glass, I saw a deck that had a pool that overlooked what I assure is NYC based on the Empire State Building in the distance. So I simply stared and marveled at the sights as I watched the setting sun.

There were no words said as I sat down and watched for hours, just enjoying the silence. I knew these ten years were going to be decently long, but if this was what I had to work with, I could survive. Grabbing a small pad of paper and a pen, I began to write down a list of what I could do.

But what to do first? 

The Pad - 100 CP:

Something you spent your ill... or maybe not so ill-gotten gains upon, evidently. This is a huge penthouse apartment in a high-security building, an obscenely luxurious mini-mansion with every comfort you can imagine and many you can't.

It also has a number of hidden rooms, sealed up behind walls of plaster. They are not much use to a normal person, but if you're capable of teleporting, then I'm sure you can find a use for them.

(While not a lot happened here, I will let it be known that these movie-based jumps may offer little in terms of challenge, so do not expect any long arcs from them. That will be for later. I have some of the jumps planned out for the next one. It will be Chronicle and, after that, Monopoly. After that, I am thinking Highschool of The Dead and Terminator and then maybe Cyberpunk Edgerunners and the Arcane.)