章節 15: Time Moves On, People Do As Well (Chronicle Complete)
(Carter POV)
The late 2010s were a mess with various terrorist attacks and multiple economic crashes. I mean, the world was supposed to end in 2012, and for some, it definitely felt like it did.
To me, it just seemed like the end came eight years a bit late as COVID-19 did pop up again, and my already antisocial social life became somehow even more antisocial as I barely left my apartment or even my warehouse.
The days soon turned to months in the months, then turned to years as 2019 and 2020 passed by quite quickly, at least when I focused on other activities. Andrew had managed to get a job at Google as a data analyst.
Matthew had become the district manager for the Walmart chains in Seattle and was making decent money, while Steve had gone on to become a senator for Washington state. The only one I actually kept in contact with was Andrew, but it mainly was just a check to see how he was doing sometimes.
Most of these calls were just me checking up on him because his mother had died in early 2019, and Richard soon followed in late 2019. I attended the funeral along with Andrew, but other than Matthew and some of his close family. No one else was there. It was a pretty private affair.
It actually felt nice to be invited in a morbid way, but thanks for having more time with her. Andrew was able to get over the loss much more quickly. It by no means was a simple process, and we often hung out at his place, which he got in Richard's will, and he needed the chats for a while.
One such conversation went quite far as the night before Christmas in 2019, Andrew invited me over to hang out, and as I got there, he invited me in. But with how brilliant Andrew is, he is not exactly subtle.
"You're hiding something from me." The question surprised me somewhat due to how vague it was, but I kept calm.
" I mean, everyone has their secrets. Anything specific?" Andrew takes a drink from his whiskey bottle and continues.
" The bullies, how you got home even though we never saw a car, and how fast you seem to be. I'm not an idiot, Carter, and if you don't wanna tell me, you don't have to." Taking a breath, I continue to drink my water, and as I say nothing, Andrew frowns but says nothing.
After sitting back on the couch, we talked about how our individual projects were going, and while I gave him some tips if he ever went into the stock market, Andrew would inform me of his day-to-day work.
Sometimes, he would complain about the ridiculous demands of some customers, as well as how some less tech-savvy customers would call and ask him to fix their computer when they only needed to turn it off and on again.
All I could do to that was just pat them on the back while he tried to remain awake after drinking two bottles, and after he conked out by midnight, I left the house after getting the guy a pillow and blanket.
After that, Andrew never really talked to me again, which I understood, as I never really told him the truth, but to be honest, I really didn't want to. That and I didn't need to.
My work was done, and the world would never even know. Thus, the last year counted down, and in September 2022, the warehouse clock hit zero, and I found myself back in the warehouse with the jump document terminal in front of me.
Seeing the next world, which was Limitless, I began to fill out the document. For the first time, I actually took a different origin, other than dropping that being the scientist origin, as I needed the perks relating to it, as one would provide me excellent hacking skills. The other would essentially grant me genius-level chemistry knowledge, which could expand the alchemy when I unlocked such a thing.
The main draw, however, was the first two perks that being accentuated the positive and eliminated the negative. These two perks working in tandem basically made it so that any powers I gained I could use without drawbacks.
Accentuate the Positive (-400CP): You now have an immunity to side effects of a certain kind. A super cool sword that takes over the body of its wielder? It's not getting even an inch inside of you. Is a demon making a pact with you for powers? Well, he is inside of your soul, but he's now stuck, only able to fuel your new abilities like a glorified battery. This perk only protects you against sources of power from outside your body, including combat drugs, artifacts, enchantments, magical pacts, items, and other things you wield by giving you only the beneficial parts and leaving the rest behind. This comes with complete immunity to addiction.
Capstone Boosted- Eliminate the Negative- Now the immunity to side effects can affect internal things. Magic that may have drawn on your emotions to fuel its power now has a separate pool. Any drawbacks your powers, biological traits, or magic systems may have held have been wiped away.
The capstone booster, which allowed me to eliminate, the negative, was referred to as smart immunity and well. It actually wasn't even that good, as it only provided me with the ability to make ten buffs on myself permanent until I decided to remove one and replace it with another. I did need to buy it because it was a capstone booster.
I knew immediately that once I took my first NZT pill, I would make it permanent for myself, and I would have nine more slots for permanent buffs. Speaking of NZT, since I bought the smart immunity perk, as well as the master chemist perk, I gained all the various forms of NZT in an ever-replenished supply.
This was perfect because to pay for these perks, I needed to take some drawbacks, but most of them weren't that big of an issue and the one drawback that made me have a drug addiction. I could just use NZT, and since I already had to eliminate the negative part, I didn't have to worry about overdosing.
Don't do drugs, kids, unless drugs somehow unlock the entire potential of your brain and are safe to use.
There was one more perk that I got, and it really took the cake for this jump document as it gave me essentially a crash course training to become an FBI agent, and with the capstone booster, I essentially became the master of motion. In tandem with the master chemist part, it allows me to look into humanity's unconscious, collective essentially.
While the words about such synergy are vague, they should be useful, I hope. But an added benefit of the FBI training perk is that the capstone booster allows me to essentially copy someone's entire movement after seeing it once as long as I had the necessary perks and power systems.
Ironically enough, there was a drawback that was actually a benefit for me, which would make it so that this jump lasted only five years instead of the standard ten. While it did describe itself as making the event screech to a halt, I was never really interested in what happened after the Limitless movie, as the TV show I heard never made it past the first season.
Since I was taking the scientist origin, I was genuinely curious about how this was going to go, although, admittedly, I was just more excited to get access to NZT.
The only more difficult drawback was the one that made it so if I were ever working under someone, it would be very difficult for me to actually convince them that I was reliable until I completed tasks for them. It would go on until the end of the jump.
But I knew what I was going for, and there was no way I was sticking around, especially when Eddie gained access to the drug. I mean, the guy was quite literally 30 steps ahead of all of his competition, and they didn't even know it.
For further reference, he dodged a sniper bullet. He calculated its trajectory by just remembering how someone fires from a sniper, and the shot and its total distance measured over 3000 meters.
And not only that, he managed to use his getting a shot to enhance his image for his presidential campaign. He turned an assassination attempt into a positive event.
I am not above admitting that I am terrified of meeting a max-level Eddie Mora. It's kind of like when a secret last boss gains Max super intelligence and knows from the beginning of the game that they were the final boss and how to beat every single hero that came to take a strike at him.
But that's enough dick-riding for me, at least, so after filling in the rest of the jump document and making sure everything matched up, I confirmed my choice, and instead of falling in unconscious, it felt as if I was being squeezed through a tube.
Before I knew it, I was holding a syringe and seemed to be in some lab. And staring at me was Eddie's friend Vernon, who would give him the drug in the first place to start the events of the movie.
The druggie looked at me with a rabid look in his eyes as I was holding bags full of the NZT pills. As he grabbed them, he was able to stutter out, "This.. this is the drug, right? You aren't trying to poison me, right?"
Taking a breath, I slowly said to the drug-addled man, " Yes, take one pill of this, and your entire life is going to change. Do make sure to keep it secret and keep it safe. A lot of people would kill for a drug like this."
Vernon, seemingly unable to keep his eyes open for a few seconds, stumbled out of the lab. As I looked around, I found a computer in the corner of the room, but as I did so, I felt as if I was dying as I started to cough relentlessly and realized that this was probably the withdrawal symptoms.
Opening a portal to my warehouse, I stumbled over to a nearby table and grabbed one of the syringes of the perfected NZT, and after injecting myself in my left arm, the world opened up to me.
I took a deep breath as I felt my mind going into overdrive as I was able to go through my entire memory in mere seconds. I felt my once-blasting headache, recede entirely, and I felt amazing. I immediately used my smart immunity perk to make the effects of the drug permanent right as I injected it into my system.
The world just seemed to light up with color as I was able to study each and every individual detail of my warehouse in seconds from the date I received each of the resources or stole it from how I got it, and I could use it in the future in seconds.
Based on my current condition, if I were to describe this to anyone, they would think I just took a heavy dose of LSD, but I would gladly take NZT over LSD any day. And thanks for taking that NZT shot. It was able to make sense of the memories within my mind.
In this life, I was still named Carter Davenport, and I was thankful for us. Keeping track of different names is a headache. It seems that in this life, I was orphaned from a young age due to the cops arresting my parents on suspicion of handling illegal drugs.
As I organized my memories, I left the warehouse and began deleting the data from the computers while also cleaning off any fingerprints.
The police were actually correct, and my parents were guilty of selling and handling drugs for a local gang. After being put in an orphanage at the age of five, I went on to get my doctorate in chemistry and biochemistry before being asked to create a kind of miracle drug for a company called Craft.
I was most likely just re-creating NZT from the original formula for that Wall Street banker Hank Atwood. This means I'm going to have a target on my head as he's going to essentially want to use me to create more NZT for him.
But this is where the problem comes in as one of the drawbacks I took was a terrible liar, so I would be unable to lie for at least a year, but I won't have to worry about that as it appears the FBI has already found the lab.
Checking the cameras, I saw an FBI team, rated, enter the building. Knowing the general response time and how long it takes for an experienced team to go through an entire two-story building, I gathered all the necessary supplies. I teleported to my apartment, which, thanks to my apartment being in the exact same spot it was in New York City, which was the setting for the movie, I could just teleport back there.
After teleporting back to my apartment, I went into my warehouse and placed all of the materials I was able to gather on the table. Next to the gathered materials, I saw multiple pieces of paper gathered up on a clipboard, which I assume was the formula for the perfected NZT.
The various alchemical reactions to most would seem wholly and utterly alien as they relate to not only the various chemicals within the brain but also to the multiple hormones throughout the body.
In simpler terms, NZT is a nootropic drug that enhances human memory and intelligence while acting as a nearly perfect antidepressant and anxiolytic. Just one of these pills could last someone a day and a couple of hours.
If certain people were able to gain access to this drug, it would be chaos. But to be honest, it was already too late for that as the formula was most likely already out there, and I did need the original copy to create the NZT pills.
For now, though, I need to take my telekinesis for a test drive.
(Also, for reference, he essentially has a replenishing supply of the NZT pill, so as soon as his bag is emptied, it refills itself. Any confusion about the build can be cleared up in the auxiliary chapter.)
(Also, I would like to make it abundantly clear that due to the nature of the jump chain, every time he leaves the world after ten years, the world he leaves has their time completely stopped.)
( I will try my best to write my protagonist as being more intelligent, but it will be difficult as I'm not a super genius, so bear with me.)
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