The realization wasn't immediate, but when it came, Suman let out a, “Ohh! I see, I see,” before continuing.

“Some retiring player bought that ticket for you, specifically.”

“Me? Like by name? Who was it.”

Now it was Suman's turn to shrug. “No idea. I wasn't given their name or any reason, but don't think too much about it. It's possible that they knew you, personally, or maybe they just met you once, and that could be in this iteration of the current timeline, or one you can't remember. It could also be that they just picked your name at random. Who knows. There's sort of a tradition for retiring players to buy a ticket for someone, so it really could just be random.”

“Retiring?” he asked, incredulously. “That's not a euphemism for, ‘dead’ or something, is it?”

Suman raises a skeptical eyebrow and then wonders to himself, “Who the hell am I talking to now?” before answering carefully, “No, … he isn't dead, but he has been a player for several hundred subjective years, at the least, and—”

“—Several hundred years!? Like, he's immortal? Wait, are you saying that players are immortal?” he asked, curiously, and with obvious interest that he couldn't hide.

“Okay ,” he thought, “I can see how the idea of technology capable of making someone immortal would be more believable than time-travel. Maybe he thinks that's more likely because stuff like the ‘portable pocket dimension’ and the fancy metal ‘card’ exist? Whatever. Let's just see how long this one lasts.”

After collecting his thoughts, Suman begins saying, “I wouldn't just call it ‘immortality,’ since—” but is then interrupted by Omar who says, quickly, “Yeah, yeah. You can still get hit by a truck, right?”

“That's not actually what I mean—but yeah, we can still die if we're hit by a truck. What I was about to say is that just talking about life extension, like in terms of aging and senescence, is complicated. From what I've read, there's more to it than simply ‘stopping’ or ‘reversing’ the aging process, at least for adults. For instance, it's easy to reset the Hayflick Limit for most cells in the human body, but doing so doesn't make people younger.”

“Hayflick?”

Suman cringed slightly at the question. He still wasn't sure if Omar was an idiot, let alone someone with a basic background in cellular biology. Probingly, he asks, “Yeah … have you ever heard of, ‘apoptosis?’ ” but Omar just shook his head. “Okay. Uhm, maybe you know it as ‘programmed cell death’ ?”

Omar shrugged and shook his head again.

Suman was understandably hesitant to probe more explicitly for fear of insulting the strange man. He asked, uncertainly, “Do you know about … cells and that sort of biology stuff?”

“You mean, like telomeres?”

“You know about telomeres but not about programmed cell death?”

Omar shrugged.

“Okay, okay. Sorry about that. I didn't mean it in that way.”

Having no idea what Suman was talking about, Omar gave another noncommittal shrug. It was his favorite gesture. Suman cleared his throat and began using what Omar could only describe as “Suman's instructor-voice,” where he spoke with a more professorial tone. “I don't actually know if this has anything to do with telomeres—”

“That's okay. I don't know what telomeres are, anyways?”

“Yeah. This isn't exactly my area of expertise. I've read about it, a bit, and they usually describe it in terms of the Hayflick limit,” Suman said, hoping his sincere admission would allow him to relate to the odd man, assuming he too was being sincere.

Omar was actually interested, though he gave no outward signs of this—or any other response for that matter.

As far as Suman could tell, Omar seemed engaged, so he continued. “Well the Hayflick Limit is the maximum number of times a given cell can divide—though we mainly refer to this as ‘programmed cell death’. Occasionally, cells mutate and basically become immortal by breaking whatever it is that sets this limit. We call those cells cancerous because they tend to multiply out-of-control. Despite this benefit, programmed cell death is still a major factor in the aging process, but there are several other mechanisms that have a similar effect. Treatments for programmed cell death, and similar mechanisms, expand human lifespans by reseting something, but they are all ‘nonrestorative’ treatments due to their inability to reverse the effects of aging that have already occurred.”

“But it can prevent wrinkles, right?”

“Only the wrinkles that result from programmed cell death, and even then—”

“So you're saying that you ‘players’ are immortal, but only if they don't miss a treatment, or fall down a flight of stairs? Do you need this treatment every few years or something? So what happens when you miss it?” Omar asked, quickly. When talking with others, he didn't normally interrupt them unless they had interrupted him first. He wasn't being juvenile here, but rather just petty and vindictive.

In response, Suman said, “Pretty much ‘no’ all around, I guess,” but then noted to himself how Omar's “normal” always seems slightly odd. “For one, we benefit from continuous treatment options, and for the, um, other question … even with daily reset treatments, there will still be aging.” As he would normally do in a conversation like this, Suman paused for a moment to give the person he was talking to the chance to ask, “why?” Instead, Omar just sat there quietly, and blinked a few times.

Once he realized his mistake, Suman rushed to respond.

“Wait, wait, wait!” he stammered. “Uhh, uhm, … ‘why’ is—it's … because … even if you reset your cells everyday, they still experience a day's worth of cell death. Once those cells are gone, they're no longer amongst the cells that will be reset the next day. It's like that for continuous treatments too, since there are always cells that are too far gone to reset, or otherwise resist the—”

“Yeah, yeah, … uh-huh, uh-huh … ,” Omar said dismissively, but in an appropriately respectful way. “I'm sure that's all quite interesting, and complicated, and stuff.” Then he began nodding while holding his chin, as if he was trying to pretend that he was sincerely considering Suman's words, without looking like he was faking it, and still failing. “Yes, yes, yes. … Quite interesting, I'm sure.” Sometimes, Omar had some strange ideas when it came to acting respectful. Had he used a posh British accent, then he would have merely sounded ridiculous.

However, he wasn't done. “Please feel free to answer my original question whenever it is most convenient for you. No pressure here. Also, you can just give a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, if that interests you.”

It took Suman a moment to look beyond that strange performance, and then another moment to parse out what the hell Omar had just said. “You know,” Suman began, with a suspicious tone, “that's an amazingly polite way to say, ‘shut-up and give me a yes or no answer.’ ”

There was an immediate change in Omar's demeanor, one that just barely hinted at some sort of internal struggle. With the patient, careful stare of a hidden jungle predator waiting for the right moment, Suman suddenly went silent and began closely examining the strange man. “This is new” he thought to himself. “It looks like he's on the verge of laughing, but is hiding it like a professional. I bet he's one bad joke away from cracking.”

At this, Suman leaned forward with a solemn expression. He folded his hands and said, “Omar,” in a flat but serious tone.

He responded with a simple “Yes,” that almost sounded completely normal. Almost.

“Why did the chicken cross the road?”

This was far beyond anything that Omar had been anticipating. Still, with all the years he spent unknowingly conditioning and training himself like a circus animal, he held on strong. Unfortunately, he had to respond respectively while acknowledging the bad attempt at humor, since his normal self wouldn't just ignore it. He scoffed while pretending to momentarily brake character, when in reality he was trying very hard not to brake character and laugh.

Without meaning to, he chuckled slightly, restraining himself enough that it was just a snicker that he hid behind a fake cough. Still, he held on, mustering enough self-control to play it off as clearing his throat with an, “Ah—uh. Uh—m,” before he said, “You were saying something about a yes or no question? Please go on,” very flatly, with his back completely straight.

It wasn't enough to fool Suman, who could easily see the strain and effort Omar made to appear to be completely normal, or whatever it was he thought of as “normal.” Maybe if he just remained silent, rather than pushing his luck, he could have managed, but Omar is not known for his moderation. So he just had to attempt to give Suman his “respectful smile,” since that would be the perfect ending point, but he realized too late that this was too much for him. This struggle played out over his face as he tried to force himself back into a neutral expression.

For Suman, it was like watching a volcano explode in slow motion. Pressure began to build as Omar's eyes slowly widened while he internally struggled to NOT comprehend what Suman just said. Then came the tremors of a smile, as Omar valiantly tried to NOT smile. Suman saw all of this and leaned back, maintaining his own serious expression.

There was also something else Omar was trying not to realize, but it was then that Suman put Omar out of his misery with a simple smirk. With the suddenness of a Buddhist monk caught up in a moment of enlightenment, Omar realized that this was all so terribly ironic. And so, that is how mount Omar exploded. “Puahhh, hah, hah, hah,” he guffawed as he doubled over and fell onto the floor. Literally rolling on the floor laughing, Omar hugged himself as he rocked back and forth, howling and cackling like a madman.

While he did this, he would periodically reach out an arm towards Suman in an attempt to offer some sort of apology. “Sorry—puah, hah, hah—sorry—hah hah …”.

Suman laughed as well, though he managed to remain seated. However, once Suman was done laughing, he still had to wait a whole minute for Omar to finish laughing on the floor. He critically examined the laughing man while he waited with a mix of disbelief and anger.

When Omar rose to retake his seat, still in the midst of a fit of giggles, he faced Suman, “Sorry, sorry. I'm terribly sorry s—” but then, Suman asked, “Your sorry?” sincerely, and before Omar could finish. There was a hint of ice in his voice with the promise of something colder. Then he raised an incredulous eyebrow and began to ask, “Really? About wh—” but Mount Omar exploded again, guffawing as he fell to one knee, just as he was about to sit on the couch.

Rather than enrage him, this actually warmed Suman somewhat. In his travels, he'd been around plenty of unusual people, some of whom had mental illnesses that they'd likely never recover from. He was amused, but not enough to laugh, and so he just waited quietly for Omar to finish. Hoping to finish this off, one way or another, he remained perfectly motionless. He didn't want to accidentally set Omar off for a third time, and it would be so much worse if he did this all for nothing.

“Is this all part of some sort of joke?” he thought, but with an edge sharper than any sword he'd ever used. He breathed in deeply and forcefully settled his emotions. “What is he even doing? What the hell is going on!? Is he pretending to be stupid or polite? Does he really have a short attention span? Which is the real Omar, and how the hell do I finish this quest if I can't tell if he actually understands anything I am saying?”

Unfortunately, this really was Omar. He was an imitation of something that no longer exists; a product of the many years he spent changing who he was so that he could remain his authentic self. In a sort of Pyrrhic victory, he resisted the persecution that he was psychological prone to believe, but he willfully sacrificed himself to do so for a few incentives he couldn't avoid, rather than any sort of trauma. Like an onion, he is the many layers that he appears to be, wrapped around an inedible core that is larger than most, but just as inaccessible.

However, just to be clear, at times he is definitely an asshole. That's all him, one hundred percent.

As far as Suman was concerned, it was Omar's move, and so he continued to wait. While he did so, Suman thought of all the questions he wanted to ask once he was certain that Omar had settled down. He didn't have to wait long as Omar, or what Suman now thought of as the “polite-Omar,” returned sooner than he had expected.

Speaking exactly as he had before, Omar said,“Please feel free to answer my original question whenever it is most convenient for you. No pressure here. Also, you can just give a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer, if that interests you.”

“Really? Am I supposed to fall for that again?”

Omar, who had worked up a sweat, now felt suddenly cold. He was panicking, but there was only a slight waver in his voice when he asked, “Whatever do you mean, Mr. Garcia?”

“It's Mr. Garcia. Again?” he said quickly. His one word question came out as an accusation.

“I'm sorry. Shall I stick with Suman then?” Omar said politely and in a way that was absolutely sincere. However, Suman did not respond.

A few seconds later, Omar began speaking again. “So what you're saying is that ‘players’ are immortal, but only if they don't miss a treatment, or fall down a flight of stairs? Do you need this treatment every few years or something?”

“I already answered that question,” Suman said, somewhat coldly. Then both men went silent. Omar, in particular, remained “respectfully” silent.

Despite his wavering panic, even now Omar had a rule for dealing with this: “wait them out.” Except, because he was also in “respectful” mode, this became, “wait them out, respectfully.” It was one of his oldest tactics, and while he wasn't clear about what he should be waiting for, he waited all the same.

Against mere mortals, this tactic was fairly effective. Suman, on the other hand, was a “chrononaut,” and he had all the time in the world. In a sense. And technically players are still mortal, just potentially long lived, with a few interesting caveats.

When he became a player, one of the first “System Skills” Suman bought was “Temp. Temp. Stabilization.” Its description read, “Temporarily stabilizes temporal fields in your immediate area. This will delay the next realignment event and extend the current iteration of the objective timeline by, on average, 4.7 hours, or until your next crossover. Cost: 5 TEP.” With a thought directed at his interface, he activated the Skill and then simply continued waiting.

As a newb, he had basically starting off as a player-instructor, and at the time, he actually thought that he'd be delivering tickets and instructing people on how to use them, sort of like he is doing with Omar, but without the insanity. Thankfully, his new job did not require him to be a deliveryman, though he still did it on occasion to better understand his students.

As Suman's mind began to wander, so too did Omar's. Unfortunately, he couldn't let his mind wander too far, as it was difficult for him to even pretend to pay attention that way, at least when he was trying to be “extra respectful.”

“… dogs? … Why not a whole team of—No! Try to pay attention,” he thought. However, with that effort, his eyes also began to wander, and this caused him to brake eye contact with Suman for an instant too long. “Plus, that's dumb. Why not just put a car in there. … That's assuming the hole can be—No! I said No!” he yelled at himself, mentally.

His thoughts were vaguely related to ideas he had about what he would be able to do with his own portable pocket dimension. However, it wasn't long before his tangents had tangents, and so on and so forth. “… aliens would never smell like that. Then again—Stop it! This has nothing to do with aliens.”

Though technically, it sort of does.

On the outside, tiny beads of sweat began to form on Omar's face. By now, Suman was certain that this madman was in the grips of some sort of mental struggle. He watched Omar coolly, and with clinical precision, while he spent the time speculating idly about what was happening beneath the surface. “He starts to get that look again, but then he comes back. Is he trying to focus? It's almost like a staring contest, except we're both blinking normally.”

There was a small chance that had this been an actual staring contest, then Omar would've already died from a stroke.

“Whatever he's doing, it doesn't really matter. If he can actually pay attention in a situation like this, then good. I could probably work with that, assuming I at least knew he was capable of doing this much. But it's almost like he's trying to pretend that he doesn't have a short attention span by paying attention.”

That was exactly what he was doing. Given enough time, Suman could be frighteningly perceptive.

“Or maybe he's compensating for something? In any case, if pretending to pay attention results in him listening, then that'll still be good enough for me, I think.”

At this point, Suman was reasonably certain that Omar could sort of pay attention, even if he was merely pretending to do so. However, just to be sure, he waited five more minutes.

In that time alone, Omar had perspired more than he had when he was rolling on the floor laughing. Near his armpits and neckline, his shirt began to darken as it started to moisten with sweat. Eventually, enough perspiration accumulated on his forehead that a single bead rolled down and into his eye. He reacts quietly to the unexpected pain, but he then becomes visibly confused when he wipes his forehead and sees that his hand came back wet. Nonetheless, he quickly regains eye contact while simultaneously rubbing the sweat off his hand and onto his pants.

It was a pathetic display, but one that was absolutely genuine.

“Fine.” Suman says loudly. Omar flinches slightly at the sudden announcement, but recovers quickly. He had no idea what Suman meant, at least not consciously. Nonetheless, the change in Omar's demeanor was as immediate as if he'd been finally freed from the confines of some terribly binding spell.

Guiltily, Suman wondered to himself if that last minute or two was strictly necessary. He'd changed much, over the years, since his own disastrous new player registration, but he hadn't become less trustful of other humans, so much as he had simply become more practical about it.

With minimal theatrics, Suman pulled out an unfolded gray towel from his phone, then got up to hand it over to Omar. “Here,” he says, but doesn't let go of the towel even when Omar grabs it. “At least, tell me this much: are you an idiot?”

Both men held onto the towel with Suman towering over Omar, who was merely sitting down. Omar says, “Uhm,” but then looks away as if he has to actually think about the question.

Suman says, “Never mind,” and then releases the towel. While returning to his seat, he adds, “An idiot wouldn't think about the advantages of answering with a lie.”

And, damn. Had that not been a figurative burn, Omar would have been scared for life.

After retaking his seat, Suman casually says, “That's a gift for you. You can keep it.”

He gets a, “Thank you!” in response that's a tad bit sheepish. Omar at least had enough sense to know when he'd been bested.

Now that that was settled, Omar allowed himself to move on, which he did almost immediately. Before he even had a chance to use his new towel, Omar had, psychologically, more or less completely recovered from that awkward ordeal. However, that wasn't to say he immediately made use of the towel. This was Omar, after all. Instead of using the towel, Omar held it in front of him, by its corners, while staring intently at it.

Suman could not see Omar's attentive gaze, as the towel was large enough to block his view. However, even if his view had been unobstructed, it would not have made Omar's actions any less perplexing.

“What are you doing?” Suman asked, with a mix of curiosity and incredulity.

“I don't know,” he says with a shrug. “I thought it might have an animation on it, like of a heptagram or something. Except that, I wondered if maybe this time the heptagram would have lines that made the towel transparent.” His voice is oddly cheerful and energetic, even though his appearance and posture suggested that neither was true. “Oh!” he suddenly exclaimed. “Or maybe it would only be transparent on one side,” he said, before flipping the towel over to the other side. Briefly, he flipped it back to the original side, in case he hadn't waited long enough.

Suman rubbed his face and grunted, “Ugh,” as though a dog had just unexpectedly licked him. Then he said, “No … ,” almost painfully, while he moved on to rubbing his forehead and temples. “It's just a towel. I got it from Walmart.” When he looks at Omar again, Suman surprises himself by how immensely relieved he is to see that Omar, at least, knows how to use a towel.

“Did I expect him to be too dumb to use a towel?” he asked himself. “No, that's not it. I think that, regardless of his intelligence, he's just ‘stupid-weird’.”

When Omar is done, he tosses the towel haphazardly onto the couch and more or less forgets about it before it even lands. It was his now, and so he'd treat it as poorly as he does his other stuff. For Omar, that was about as close as he ever gets to an expression of sincere gratitude. This was because he didn' have a specific rule governing how he should act upon receiving gifts. One had almost developed in the past, but it never panned out. The reason for this is almost obvious in retrospect: no one ever gives Omar anything because they think he'd be grateful, and yet he still receives gifts.

Like flicking a switch, Omar attempts to resume his prior “respectful” demeanor and says, “As you were saying?”

“If my guess is correct,” Suman surmises to himself, “then he should be able to continue like nothing happened. Clearly, he wanted—or needed—a more direct answer, so that's sort of my fault.”

Sometimes, when it comes to people, Suman is far too reasonable for his own good.

“I think I know what to do.”

And he does to some extent. However, he has also worn Omar down a bit, and despite his years of conditioning and various coping strategies, Omar's finite endurance has always been one of his greatest weaknesses.

“To answer your original question about player immortality, depending on your definition of ‘immortal,’ it could be yes, no, kind of, maybe, or neither.” He gestures “maybe” with his hand before pausing to gauge Omar's reaction. However, as far as he can tell, his reaction seems to be as ambiguous as one of his shrugs. Continuing, he said, “I would say that the lifespan of a player is probably ‘indefinite’. We get one treatment at the beginning, but whatever it is, it works continuously and automatically from then on. Here's the thing, though, even in the best case scenario we still age, in a sense. It's just that, our aging process is much slower and completely different than what you are familiar with.”

Raising both of his hands, Omar pantomimes a monster coming to eat its victim. “So you guys become—rarrr … hsss … like the crypt keeper?” he asked, supplying his own sound effects.

“That hissing,” Suman thought, “was more like a ‘vampire come to suck yo blud’ gesture at the end there, but he didn't bother correcting Omar.” Instead, he raised an eyebrow and responded with a curt, “No.”

Omar raises his hand again.

“Yes, Omar,” he says, and tilts his head in acknowledgement. Suman didn't bother correcting him about that either.

Omar didn't actually have another question ready. He just wanted to test Suman. In order to buy himself some time to think, he lowers his hand very slowly. “So we won't become feeble crypt keepers who fawn wistfully at our foregone youth?”

“Yes—I mean, no. You will likely be less feeble actually.” Suman was caught off guard by Omar's use of “we,” and wonder if he planned it that way. In reality, it was just an “accident.”

“Less feeble?” Omar says, by way of a question.

“I'm going to take a wild guess and say that you probably live a rather sedentary lifestyle. So, depending on your style of gameplay, and your interest in traveling through time, you might end up moving around enough to grow some muscle or develop your cardio. In addition to that, there are also a variety of opportunities to become stronger, faster, and generally more physically capable to a degree that can slightly exceed what non-players can achieve.”

⁂

Some of Omar's interest returns, making him wonder about the details of the ticket's “offer.” He asks, “So is it going to be dangerous? Am I going to be running around for my life?”

“That all depends on where and when you go. Remember, for most of human history, life was pretty tough, and even now, it isn't like the entire planet is safe. In fact, regardless of when, most places on Earth are dangerous, and you probably can't get ambulance service in many of those places.” Having grown more comfortable with the flow of the conversation, Suman fell into some sort of “lecture mode” where he used his instructor-voice. “Life is messy in ‘linear time,’ and it is not any less messy in ‘lateral time.’ ”

“And you're still not going to show me that you can travel through time?”

“Correct,” Suman said bluntly, but then he tried elaborating. “Okay, let me explain it this way: in most situations, becoming permanently chronoactive is, … well … permanent. Really, there are only two reliable ways to make a chronoactive person ‘passive’ again.”

“One way is to request the scrubbing service. That will undo the life you led as a player, at least from your perspective, and prevent you from ever registering as a player in the first place. For obvious reasons, this service is only available to players. The other way is bit trickier and relies entirely on luck. Basically, if you die and then have your birth prevented, and after a sufficient amount of lateral time passes, if you are born again, but—”

“Wait a second!” Omar says, suddenly. “Why couldn't I just go back in time and tell myself to ‘runaway while screaming that there's a crazy guy in my living room!’ ?”

“That scenario is rather specific … ,” Suman says suspiciously.

“Whoops! Wrong direction, Omar,” he says silently to himself. Out loud, he says, “Never mind,” dismissively, while shaking his head. “The point is, why couldn't I prevent myself from registering?”

“Oh! That's because you'll still be registered until you explicitly request to be unregistered. Also, you'll still be chronoactive, as well”

“But what happens if I do that?”

“You mean, if you decide to quit?”

“No. I'm talking about going back to—here—and tell myself not to do register.” Omar says while pointing at the ground.

“Ah, I see what you mean,” he says quickly and with a nod, before continuing. “It varies quite a bit, but regardless of those details, it won't undo your ‘threshold event’—that is, you'll still be permanently chronoactive. However, it will change how you become permanently chronoactive.”

“For your scenario, first you'll be made permanently chronoactive through the registration process, just like any other new player that isn't already chronoactive. Then, when you go back in time to change that, most likely, interacting with your past self will be how you became permanently chronoactive in the new iteration of the current timeline. Once the timeline incorporates your changes, you'll get an additional set of memories that fits into the new timeline, though from another perspective, it will be like you'll already have those memories, so the new memories will be of the prior timeline where you originally went through the registration process.”

Omar had an indignant look on his face. “Whattt? I'll still be registered as a player, even though the event never happened?”

“Think about it this way, the database with your information will be chronoactive. It's not just people that can become permanently chronoactive. However, if you request to cancel your registration, then that data will change. But again, that won't change the fact that you're permanently chronoactive.”

“So, I'll just be standing there and suddenly discover that I'm a player?” Omar asked, incredulously.

“Yes. Both timelines happened, but one of them unhappened. Only chronoactive people and records will know what unhappened, and for stuff like this, that's all that matters.”

“Doesn't that mean that people should be randomly discovering that they are players?”

“Not unless they registered in a prior timeline.”

Sensing that there was actually a bigger problem with this scenario, Omar said, “Wait a sec. … That also means I probably wouldn't travel back in time to prevent myself from registering … or, how about this? What if I go back in time and tell myself to not go back in time?”

“It varies quite a bit, actually,” he began. “Sometimes you might remember meeting your future self, but not traveling to the past to do that. Other times, you might—” then suddenly, Omar's hand shot up. Raised high in the air, his arm waved desperately, almost like an overeager student that knew the answer to this question. Suman was answering a question, not asking one, but Omar was so animatedly insistent that he absolutely had to stop mid-sentence. “Go ahead, Omar.”

“What if, after meeting my future self, I decide that I am too lazy to go back in time to do something that I already did. If I don't go back, then who did I meet? Where did that future version of me come from?”

“That was still you. Your departure-event unhappened, but you still remember what unhappens” Suman began, but then added, “except sometimes … there's … also—” and Omar's hand was up again. He looked like an overgrown child, and it was just too ridiculous for Suman to get frustrated. Shaking his head in amusement, he said, “Go ahead, Omar,” again.

“Yeahhh, … but what if the timeline doesn't change that much. That happens, right?” Suman nodded in confirmation. “Then, does that mean I get to remember the future?”

“No,” he said with a mild chuckle. “You can't remember the future, unless you've been there.”

“But I remember what unhappened, right? Doesn't that include some bit of the future that didn't unchange?”

“‘Unchange?’ ” he said amused. “That's not an actual—uh, never mind. You as past-Omar, who met your future-self, does not remember going back in time.”

“I thought you just said—” and then Suman interrupted Omar.

“The timeline does not change instantly.” he said, simply. “Let's say you originally traveled back in time, tomorrow at noon. You can meet that future self now, but regardless of whether you go back in time tomorrow at noon, you will not remember doing so until after tomorrow at noon. In fact, it'll probably be a few hours lat—”

This time, Omar interrupted without raising his hand. “But when I come back from the past, as my future self, won't I remember doing that?”

“Yes. You will remember something you just did.”

“But my past self might not remember that until a few hours later?”

“That's correct.”

Omar tried to respectfully disagree, but instead he said, “That doesn't make any sense,” which, by his own standards, wasn't quite as “extra respectful” as it needed to be. This was a little slip-up on Omar's part, but he didn't seem to notice.

⁂

On the other hand, Suman had begun to notice that the “polite act,” as he called it, was wavering a little bit, by a little bit, as they talked. Suman grew overconfident and assumed that all he had to do was steer the conversation towards getting him to think about registering. Then that would be enough for the AMIs to declare that he is sufficiently “informed.”

Just as Suman was about to finish what he was saying, he received another quest update.

Quest Update for: Informed Decision 200% of Local Background Levels.

Description:

You're almost there! Keep going! Also, your supervisor said he's not opposed to the addition of death threats and bribery to your usual presentation. It's up to you.

Bonus Rewards: Deferred.

“Why is he even watching?” Suman thought, slightly amused. He tried to respond directly to the notification, as if it were a personal message, mostly because he wanted to ask how much it cost him to make that bad joke. His interface processed the bad command and, instead, offered an alternative, asking, “Do you want to send a message or an invitation for a private chat to Supervisor, D6 Fin 9407 of Sol Zelda 3?” He didn't immediately reject his interface's offer.

In that brief interlude, Omar thought about some dog training videos he'd watched the other day, just because he wanted to better understand why people would willingly have children. Due to his subconscious use of animal training techniques that he unknowingly applies to himself, watching these sorts of videos is another of Omar's strange habits. Unsurprisingly, he never found a satisfying answer and so he lost interest in it, just as he had before. Barely a second later, he essentially forgot about it again as soon as Suman began speaking.

“Listen, I could answer your question by explaining everything I know about ‘temporal science,’ and I could do it using videos, graphs, holograms, and even a sort of powerpoint presentation—which is what I do as an instructor during the tutorial—but if I did all that now, the presentation alone would likely make you chronoactive.”

Omar reacted to the word, “hologram,” because he absolutely wanted to see that.

Suman, however, misinterpreted this response as some form of skepticism. “And before you ask,” he began, but then said under his breath, “—even though you probably weren't going to ask that question—I am personally not willing to make you chronoactive, at least not outside of the registration process.”

Omar heard the quiet part and thought, unironically, and with a smirk, “Good. He's starting to pick up the training.”

“There are people who do that, and I just think that sort of thing is irresponsible.”

Recalling that it was important to reward good behavior, Omar nodded happily and said,“Good b—um—thank you,” because in midsentence, he remembered that Suman was a human being.

“Uh, yeah. You're welcome,” Suman said skeptically, but then decided, incorrectly, that Omar was sincerely grateful. Technically, Omar was only grateful that Suman did not notice his slip-up.

Wanting to refocus the conversation elsewhere, such as back onto the original topic, Omar asked, “Uhh, so you've been saying ‘chronoactive’ a lot, like … does that just mean the ‘ability to travel through time’?” as if the conversation had actually been anywhere else.

“Being permanently chronoactive is not just about the ‘ability to travel through time,’ but that is half of it. The other half is the ability to perceive the ‘two-dimensional nature of time,’ and it's that bit that makes demonstrations and conversations so dangerous,” but then, quickly added, “‘dangerous,’ as in the sense that I don't want to make you chronoactive that way.”

“So you're saying that just talking about time-travel can cause people to travel through time?” Omar asked incredulously. He wasn't particularly concerned about the dangers of simply talking about something like this. His amused incredulity bordered on the casual side of “respectful,” but neither man noticed.

“Heh, well, the actual traveling and navigation part is a bit more complicated than that,” Suman said, slightly amused. “Putting that aside, in a conversation about time-travel, if the person doing most of the talking is chronoactive, then, the answer is yes. It is indeed possible that those listening could gain the ‘ability to travel through time’ if they are not already permanently chronoactive.” Suman added the finger quotes for Omar's benefit. “And yes, this also applies to reading a book or watching a video made by a chronoactive person.”

For that last part, Suman might as well have asked Omar to come up with the most stupid-weird scenario he could think of, and then describe it in a form of a question.

Doing exactly this, Omar began saying, “What if I put a transcript of your presentation in a bottle and toss it into the ocean. Then, decades later, it's picked up by some random person in China who can't read English, so they take a picture of the transcript and send it over the internet to—”

Suman interjected, with a loud, “Stop!” that he repeated a several times while desperately gesturing with both hands as if Omar was about to drive off a cliff. Despite the apt analogy, Suman saw the danger as being analogous to a rabbit hole with a sign that said, “Straight to wonderland or hell; either or both,” with an arrow pointing down.

“Yes,” he said, somewhat strongly, and in much the same way a parent might say to their child, “yes, you can have it. Now leave me the hell alone.” But, to be clear, that was an expression of frustration, rather than a cry for help. “Yes,” he said again, “the information itself is chronoactive, but only if the sequence of events starts from a ‘chronoactive source.’ However, the chronoactivity will decrease as the message becomes further removed from its original source. There are lots of other factors too, but it doesn't matter. When the timeline changes, the ‘total chronoactivity’ in a bubble that's a few light-hours wide—actually I forget the exact number—but the point is that nature has a way of dealing with ‘chronoactivity exposure,’ up until that exposure makes something permanently chronoactive.”

“Then, what happens if I don't register for a few days.”

“This conversation will probably unhappen in one of the upcoming iterations of the current timeline. In that case, you'd probably just get the ticket sent to you in the mail, or by a random courier, but with a minimal one-page explanation asking if you want to register to play a game.” Suman glanced over at the nearby pile of unopened mail before adding, “Well, probably not normal mail, in your case.”

When it seemed like Omar did not have an immediate question in mind, Suman said, “Okay, I think that's enough of that. We should probably move on to any questions you might have that aren't so heavy in the temporal sciences.”

In actuality, Suman could have continued talking about the “temporal sciences” for a while longer, since he still had yet to meet the 210% minimum requirement for his quest.

⁂

It was Omar's turn to choose the next conversation topic, and so Suman waited nervously for his next question. He desperately hoped that the discussion's momentum thus far, would encourage Omar to ask a question that was at least somewhat relevant to the current topic. At the moment, from Suman's perspective, Omar did indeed appear to be deep in thought, but he stopped himself from trying to anticipate whatever the hell it was that Omar could possibly ask about next. “There be dragons,” is what Suman thought of that.

Omar did notice the lull in the conversation, and was, in fact, thinking about the current situation from a different angle. That is not to say, however, that one followed causally from the other. “Is this going to lead to something that will change my life forever?” he wondered, but then dismissed the thought. “Nahh. … Nothing like that has ever happened to me, and it's a safe bet that it never will.”

Even if he desperately tried, Omar couldn't be anymore wrong about that.

“It's just that this situation,” he thought, “has been profitable and dangerously amusing so far. Hehe.”

At that, Omar, realized he had yet to really explore the game aspect of Suman's story. He was somewhat amused, and games were meant to be amusing. To him, it was as simple as that. However, Omar had enough sense to recognize how ironic it was that he found it far more believable that there was some sort of high-tech game in this, rather than all that crazy time-travel stuff.

Rather than dismiss everything outright, Omar summoned his inner gamer for advice. “If all this turned out to be true, then I should be looking for traps and other details that might make my life a living hell.” He thought about all the books and movies he knew about where the protagonist spent most of the time running for their life. “What would be the most likely danger, assuming that what he said was true?”

When he reframed it that way, the question came to him immediately, and so he asked Suman, “Do players kill other players?”

Then and there, Suman decided that he did not want the explore the possibility that there was some sort of trend here, in regards to Omar asking insightful and thought-out questions.

“Yes,” he said plainly, because that's the only answer he could give. “The world of chrononauts—players or otherwise—is dangerous, and in some places, violence is common. However, that violence also includes threats from non-human and non-sentient creatures. Beyond that, the game itself does not incentivize players to kill other players, but it also does not generally penalize player killings, except in certain situations, such as with new players.”

Omar wasn't sure if that was the answer he was looking for. However, when recalling Suman's claims of “life extension,” he found another angle. “So players probably live long lives, right?”

Suman nodded. “Yeah, though, … I bet that trying to figure out the exact average lifespan of time-travelers would be sort of tricky. I don't even know if those numbers exist, but from anecdotal evidence, players that are more than a century old, in ‘sequential years,’ is not unusual.”

“Yeah, okay,” Omar said quickly, as if that's what he expected to hear. “So then, what do you think is the most common form of death for players?”

Trying to not anticipate someone's questions, in a conversation like this, was stressful. If you add to that, the uncanny ability to ask probing questions when they're least expected, then that is how tired, confused, and almost defeated Suman feels. It was like one of those treadmill stress tests that doctors use to assess someone's cardiovascular health, except in this case they were testing the limits of his mental health, and in place a the treadmill and heart, there was simply Omar crushing his soul. That's not to say that it was all bad, but rather that it could be anything from a rigorous workout, to the act of literally running towards your own death, just to see what would happen.

“Probably injuries,” Suman said, mechanically, but also professionally. He had to conserve some energy in case this became a war of attrition. “Like I said before, there are dangerous places out there. On top of that, the most severe injuries that one might incur, happen more often in dangerous places that lack any sort of emergency medical services.”

While Omar thought about that answer, his inner gamer went back to sleep. Now Omar was getting bored.

⁂

Because Omar was Omar, he suddenly asked, “If I say no, then what?” Then, as soon as he said that, Suman received a quest update.

Quest Update for: Informed Decision 211% of Local Background Levels.

Description:

Yay! You successfully completed that part of the quest's standard objectives. Keep going! He's almost entirely informed, sort of.

Bonus Rewards: Deferred.

Mistaking the update as being his much anticipated quest completion notification, Suman stood up abruptly, but then became annoyed at the implication that Omar did not know enough to make an informed decision. To Omar it almost seemed like Suman was annoyed by the question when, ironically, he considered it to be one of Omar's least annoying questions.

“Then I leave.” Suman said, then looked at the door as though he was about to leave—because he sort of was. “The ticket is still valid if you change your mind, but it is yours to do with as you please. If you lose the ticket or give it away, then whoever finds it will be able to register as a player, and the ticket is single-use only.”

Omar looked at the metal “ticket,” since he still had yet to even touch it, since he'd placed it down on the couch. Turning back to Suman, he reached out in a “hold on” gesture and said, “Wait a second. I just have a few more questions.”

After he spoke, Omar was surprised by what he said. “Why don't I want the crazy person to leave?” he asked himself. The answer appeared immediately, “Oh, now I remember.”

Omar asked Suman, “How do I get my own portable pocket dimension cellphone?”

“Really?” he said, somewhat incredulously. “Is that what this is about?”

Omar didn't trust himself to respond, as he knew he'd say, “Why don't you tell me, you dumb-ass crazy person.”

“It's just a perk of being a player. That personal storage space is like the ‘inventory’ you sometimes get in games. And before you ask—no—there is no way you can get one without becoming a player.”

At that, both men went silent; each seemingly lost in his own thoughts.

Suman remained standing next to the easy chair he'd been using. “The moment I get the quest completion notification,” he thought, “I'm out of here.”

While Suman waited, Omar looked at the metal ticket again. Ironically, Omar was also becoming increasingly frustrated and impatient. “This would be a Huge waste of time if I don't get my own pocket dimension,” he thought.

At this, Omar began to reason that such a prize was well-worth jumping through a few hoops. “I can just use my throwaway email addresses and telephone numbers when I fill out any forms. Then, after I get this registration stuff started, I can continue on with my day. If nothing happens, then so what. I'm just back where I started, except I have a fancy metal card thingy. I bet the registration thing is something stupid and obviously fake.”

Omar did not speak these thoughts out loud, but he did feel like it was time to call Suman's bluff.

He grabbed the ticket, and said with some finality, “Okay then. What do I have to do?”

Suman's expression instantly changed; flickering in quick succession from surprise, to accusatory disappointment, and then finally to genuine concern. “F—first, just put the ticket down so that you aren't touching it,” he said while motioning Omar as though the ticket was about to explode.

Omar, who had only now began to believe that the ticket was safe, said, “Um, … okayyy,” very slowly, while leaning over and stretching as far as he could, without getting up, to carefully place the metal ticket at the other end of the couch.

Staring at it, now from a distance, Omar wondered how large of an explosion could something that small produce. Though he remained annoyingly suspicious, he'd been somewhat mollified by Suman's claim that the ticket wasn't radioactive.

There were limits, he knew, for chemical explosions, but then he realized that there were also nuclear explosions. Even though fission bombs, fissile material, and anything related to radioactive stuff, was itself radioactive; nuclear fusion was different. In a fusion reaction, while the components needn't be radioactive, the actual fusion reaction most definitely was.

Once Omar put the ticket down, Suman went back and sat in the easy chair once again. Being a decent person, Suman realized that there was at least one important thing he hadn't mentioned. With that realization, he also grudgingly admitted that Omar could also have other important questions, as he sometimes demonstrated, but even after exceeding his expectations at least twice already, Suman doubted that it would happen again.

At that, speaking in a metaphorical sense, some god of irony won his game of bingo.

“It isn't up to him to know what is and isn't important,” Suman thought. “That's my job.”

When he finally spoke, Suman, being obviously relieved by the averted catastrophe, quickly said, enigmatically, “Sometimes they can be a bit literal.” His tone made it clear that he was not interested in elaborating.

Suman's use of the word “they” was to Omar, what the spot of a laser pen was to a frisky cat. He instantly whipped his head around to lock eyes with Suman, and while staring directly at him with a catlike intensity, Omar asked, “‘Theyyy?’ ‘They,’ whooo?” because he couldn't Not ask.

“Damnn … damnnn” he said quietly to himself while shrinking back and away from the now incredibly creepy Omar. It was actually an impressive sight for the tall man. “Noo,” he said somewhat quietly. Then, a little firmer, but like a person kindly disciplining a dog, he added, “No! I said, no.” His head shook while he spoke, but even now, neither man had yet to avert his gaze.

Suman, who'd fought actual monsters several times, some of which were so grossly mutated that it was impossible to guess at their base animal, was creeped out, slowly reached for his sword.

Still waiting for an answer, Omar sat perfectly still, save for his breathing. However, when he saw Suman reach into his pocket and then continue reaching further than ought to have been possible, Omar broke their gaze to stare at Suman's crotch. He had two ideas about what was happening, though both were absolutely wrong. However, Suman correctly guessed one of them and subsequently became embarrassed.

Somewhat smoothly, he pulled his hand out and then grabbed his phone once it closed. He took it out and looked at it, as if to check the time or a missed call. The screen was blank, though Suman wouldn't have noticed because he was looking at the backside. While flipping the phone around, he looked and saw that Omar was staring, forlornly, at his ticket. Very quietly, he put his phone back in his pocket, without so much as a squishing sound from the black leather chair. “Maybe? … Could I, though? Could I really pretend like that didn't happened, and just continue where I left off? … ” The very thought of it sounded lubricious, but Suman thought he was almost there, but he really didn't want to bring up the AMIs.

Carefully, but quickly, he recalled the last thing he said, and then he remembered what he was about to say, before he spoke.

In his head, Suman repeated what he had said, “Sometimes they can be a bit literal,” before adding, “and it's simple to register. …”

“It's rather simple, really,” he said out loud, confidently, and as normally as he could. “While holding it, you just say that you want to register as a player.”

This time, when Omar turned to look at Suman, it was in a distinctly human fashion. Suman did notice a brief flicker of surprise, but otherwise Omar looked like he was waiting for his answer.

“Really? Then what would happen if a little girl found this and accidentally said those words?”

Shaking his head slightly while looking at Omar, Suman quietly said, “And so damn random … ,” but in a way Omar wasn't sure if he was meant to hear.

“There are obviously age restrictions, and the system, or whatever it is, is context aware. However, in this situation,” he said with a broad gesture, “if you were holding the ticket, that system would assume you actually mean to register, even if you just conversationally asked, ‘so, all I do is say that I want to register as a player?’ ” with the last part said while imitating Omar's voice.

Shaking his head, Suman said, reproachfully, but in good humor, “Honestly, I think they just have a strange sense of humor or something,” and then immediately regretted saying it, and even accepting this quest. “I—I mean—uh, never mind. Just do that thing where you forget it or pretend it didn't happen.”

The look that Omar gave Suman, suggested that that wasn't happening.