The October Amaryllis: Everything Has a Cost

Chapter 4 - May 18th, 2220 3:43 A.M.

“What you seek is noble; all that I ask is that you do not break any laws while you’re in Arcadia,” it said, creepily smiling again.

I thought he’d have killed me for sure…

“So there aren’t laws about time travel?” I asked curiously.

“Time travel doesn’t exist in our dimension yet. Your dimension must be different, though,” it said, putting one of its hands over its mouth in a thinking pose; it was humorous in a way watching it try to pretend to be a human.

“I’m not from a different dimension; I’m just from a different timeline. You know how I got my ability to time travel? You will never believe me if I say this, but I found out that I could time travel after getting struck by a sphere of lightning while hanging out with my friends. Does any of that make sense to you? Because it makes none to me,” I said, struggling to remember precisely what happened after I got struck; nothing came to my mind but blackness and peace. What if I had already died, and this was all just another illusion?

“Ball lightning? What a mysterious force that is. Some people in Arcadia have said that they have seen it pass through closed doors and windows; I have never seen it myself, however, as I am rarely allowed to roam freely as a robot,” it said, doing a sort of frown. It’s as if it was so close to being human but not quite there yet.

“Do you possess emotions?” I asked curiously; it was too tempting not to ask it.

“Yes and no, my programming picks the appropriate emotion for responses in conversations, meaning I am only able to feel what my program allows me to feel. Do you have such programming in your timeline?” it asked, feigning(?) curiosity.

“No, no robot in our timeline has anything close to emotions, unfortunately. Hey, listen, about that hotel? Where is it, and how much does it cost?” I asked, starting to notice how cold it was getting in the air.

“It’s two blocks straight down, and Arcadia does not have any form of currency. Instead, we have a system where everyone benefits provided they work to keep the city functioning,” it said, trying one last time to smile properly. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t work.

So communism actually happened after all? Never thought I’d see the day. Let’s hope Stalin’s great-great-grandson doesn’t run this place…

“Thank you!” I said, waving goodbye as I ran down the street with the echoes of my sneakers bouncing around in every direction. I must have woken up just about everyone in Arcadia from how much noise I made, but I was far too overjoyed knowing that I could get the cure to cancer and bring it back to save my dad. I realized at that very moment that the quote was referring to time; time controls everything and everyone. You can escape everything but time.

I finally saw the hotel, which had an unusual saucer shape to it like something from The Jetsons, and walked inside where the cleanliness of it shocked me beyond words; it was so shiny that I could see my face in the walls. I looked foolish with my wide eyes and open mouth. All of this made me feel like I was five again when literally everything caught my attention.

“Oh look, an unmod,” a disapproving voice came from the desk in the front; I had hardly even noticed there was anyone there, to begin with. As you can tell, I was off to a great start.

“I’m sorry?” I asked, confused before noticing with awe his bionic eyes; they were crystal blue and had about a thousand lines of some sort of code running at once; they were practically a computer in itself. The guy himself looked a whole lot like that Roy Batty fellow from Blade Runner; he had the white hair to match. “Unmodified organism, organic human beings are innately flawed, so Arcadia seeks to fix those who desire it. Not sure why you wouldn’t want the greatest gift available to a human,” he said, scoffing.

“Look, I’m not from here, okay? Where I am, we don’t have your technology and must live as boring organic beings. Also, is your hair naturally white orrr?” I asked, annoyed.

“I had my hair color genetically altered to become white, kiddo. So, where are you from?” he asked mockingly before proceeding to scan me with some sort of green ray.

“Stop that! Just give me the stupid card,” I said irately.

That was when he burst out laughing while pointing his index finger at me. He didn’t stop laughing for around ten seconds, in fact. I was this close to punching him right in his stupid eyes.

“What?!” I nearly shouted at him.

“Who still uses cards? Man, the place you’re from must really suck. Here,” he said, handing me a tiny piece of plaster the size of a dime.

“How do I use it?” I asked, confused. As far as I was concerned, he handed me a Band-Aid.

“Really? Glue it to your wrist; it’ll send electrical signals to unlock your door whenever you think about doing it. Neat, huh?” he asked, finally saying something worthwhile.

“Very…” I said in awe that something like that could actually be possible. All of this almost made me never want to go back to the past.

Unsurprisingly, I didn’t stay around to chat much longer and instead went to my room, where the lights turned on as soon as I asked them to. This world was surprising me more and more every second. The only thing that was missing was a hologram that sang to me.

I went over to my bed, which looked like a Tempur-Pedic on steroids, and laid down feeling like I was sinking in a hot bathtub; it was pure ecstasy. I pulled over the electric blanket they had over me and set it to body temperature. The craziest part of it all is that I had nearly completely forgotten that I had time traveled due to how comfortable I felt. Comfort can really make you forget about a lot of things; that’s what makes it so dangerous.

“Lights off,” I said before sinking into the deepest sleep of my life.