Choosing the Red Pill

James gasped awake.

He’d spent lord knows how long inside his memory palace simply observing all the useless shit he’d done over his life. He was now ready, or at least he thought he was ready, to continue with the rest of the wishes so he closed his eyes and thought: Djinn.

He opened his eyes and Djinn was stood in the room.

“Jesus.”

James growled, the man laughed, “I already told you.”

“I know,” James said while rolling his eyes, he noted that the Djinn was wearing a very expensive looking black suit and tie, it looked good on him, James grinned. “Okay, I think I’m ready to continue.”

“So, wish three, then?”

“One thing that I’ve wished I had was decent eyesight, I had a lazy eye and it was covered by my right eye, was always a pain in the ass. I’ve always wanted better eyesight.”

“We can work on that.”

“So, I’d like to make my eyesight as near to perfect as I can without changing my biology, at least not too much.”

“Okay. With you so far.”

“I want to stay as close to human as possible, so I don’t want to make any radical changes. Would it be possible to make my eyesight as close to possible to that of a falcon?”

“That won’t be possible, especially if you want to avoid radical changes.”

“Damn. Can you advise me on what is possible?”

“Yes, and I can tell you that vision won’t go better than ‘12/1’.”

“Hmm, 12 to 1? That’s pretty good.”

“Yes, it is. No human has ever had that level of visual acuity, but it is within the realm of possibility, though just. 6/1.5 is the best ever measured.”

“Okay, so I can wish for such an increase in visual acuity. But, I wonder if I could ask for that along with the ability to see into infrared and have highly developed night vision.”

“James, while that might be possible. It does, however, require a significant modification to your genetics. I am limited to what changes I can affect in the human genome, as per your specifications.”

“Right.”

And, with that, they were off into another marathon discussion and writing session. They didn’t finish until nearly three in the morning. James was tired, his eyes were blurry, and he was starved.

“I think that will do it, Gin. Good thing, too! I’m hungry and tired.”

“I can take care of that,” said the Djinni, with a smile. He liked the name James had given him; then again, he’d learned that he enjoyed the taste of Gin. So, with a wave of his hand, Gin caused a small but very nourishing repast to appear between them and for James to be focused enough that he could finish his meal and get cleaned up so he could go to sleep.

The next day, when James was up and refreshed, he invoked the third wish. There didn’t seem to be any immediate sense of change, until James realized he was wearing his glasses and everything was blurry. He was rapidly getting a headache. Removing the glasses, he instantly noticed how sharp his vision had become. He could make out details in every part of the room, some of which he’d have needed a magnifying glass to have noticed before. Also his headache went away.

“So what do you want to do today?”

“I need to head out.”

“I could port you there.”

“How?”

“Well magic carpet and all.”

James stared and Gin started laughing, he shook his head, “Naw. It’s cool. I’ll take a driverless car there.”

“So what do you intend to do?”

“I need to do a bit of research beforehand.”

“Like what?”

“Unlike Doc Brown I am not above using future knowledge to create my own mental almanac,” James said. “I want to use my future knowledge to invest in the stock market, so I need to know what I’m talking about when I do. I need to do some research on this.”

“Sure.”

James got up and went to the computer. He was going to miss the instant access; the time to which he’d be returning was decades before the Quantum computer revolution.

He booted it up and searched for relevant data. He looked at all the major dates where he could get some big ‘fuck you’ money and then smaller investment schemes. He needed some stuff that could start him out that wouldn’t get him audited by the IRS. The two biggest things were 9/11 and the 2008 recession.

He also looked for and found information on all of the horse races at the local track. He smiled and scrolled down the list, absorbing everything he could think of.

Once he was done he flipped through the directory and found just the person he needed.

James booked the first available appointment.

The next day he got into the car, entered the destination, then sat back and closed his eyes. He was dreaming when the car pinged him, telling him he had arrived. He got out and walked into the office, where a lady of indeterminate age greeted him. She might have been 30 years old ... or 55 ... it was hard to say with all of the makeup. He noticed the slightest crinkling around the eyes, still not any indicator of her age.

She looked up from her computer, “Good morning. How can I help you?”

“I’m James Smith and I’m here to see Bob Willis.”

She nodded.

She typed on her phone, sending Mr. Willis a message, got it pinged back and, rising, she led him down a short hall. His eyes were inevitably drawn to her as ass, which swayed in a pleasant manner. She walked briskly, putting on foot directly in front of other, strutting like a model on the runway.

She ushered him into a pleasantly appointed office that was clearly inhabited by someone who was carefully organized to accomplish a great deal of work. There were files neatly stacked on one corner of the desk, and an antique wooden file cabinet had other piles of papers on top, waiting to be put away.

Willis was younger than James expected, maybe 35 years old. The receptionist left and the conversation started.

“James, my name is Bob Willis. It’s a pleasure to meet you. How can we help you at Harmon & Willis?”

“I want to understand what happens when I invest with you. I really know very little about the stock market, bonds, secondary markets, mutual funds, and all those buzzwords I hear on the business-oriented cable channels. I just received a small amount of money and I want it to be invested wisely.”

Willis was thoughtful, “Okay. Let’s start with some basic questions. How much do you have to invest? Let’s also take a look at your current spending. What is the monthly requirement for your maintenance? Once I have that, we can run some illustrations for your consideration and I will explain the options.”

“Sure.”

They spent the next 20 minutes while James explained his requirements. This was hard as he was making things up to inflate his net worth so he would keep Bob interested in continuing his education. After satisfying Bob, the conversation turned to the information that James needed.

Bob said, “We will run an illustration of how we would allocate your assets to meet the goals you just told me. But you asked for a brief education so let me provide an investing overview. When you buy stock, you are purchasing a small piece of the ownership of the company. The price of the stock fluctuates based mostly on whether the prospects of the company are perceived as better or worse in the future than at the time you purchase it. Here’s a simplified example - if you buy shares of Disney, for example, at $10 a share, and they have a huge hit movie like Lion King or Frozen, people may buy Disney stock because they expect Disney’s revenue to increase. That drives the price up. Now, Disney’s actually a complicated example because they own many other things such as TV networks, theme parks and so on, so one movie doesn’t really impact their bottom line that much, but I hope you get the idea.”

James responded, “Let me anticipate the second part of that. When they have a problem, like Disney World losing money, their stock price goes down because people expect that the future isn’t as bright. Yes?”

Bob smiled, “You got it. Sometimes the stock movement is based on a rumor. The good news is that if you are invested in a solid company, you can ignore the day to day movement in the stock price. You just buy it and check on it once in a while to make sure nothing untoward happens. The key is value, you can overpay for a solid company and end up with a poor return on your investment. Our job is to make sure that your purchases are a good value.”

He continued, “Owning stock means that you do need to have a finger on the pulse of the company every now and then. If you don’t have the time, aptitude, or inclination to do that, you have a couple of choices. The most popular is to buy a mutual fund. A mutual fund is simply a collection of stocks run by someone whose job is to buy good stocks, watch them go up in price, and sell them when the time is right.

“Another option is to hire someone - a stock broker – to pick companies and monitor your investments. Brokers come in many flavors. Some will point you to mutual funds, others specialize in speculation. There are lots of ways to gamble - margin investing, options, fast-paced commodities trading. In my opinion, it’s a guaranteed way to lose money. That’s not what we do here. We’re an investment advisor that focuses on helping folks like you have a comfortable retirement using money that’s accumulated over time.”

“I will remember that.”

“Thank you. We will have everything ready for our next meeting in 10 days. I will call you in a couple of days to set up the appointment.”

Willis smiled and they shook hands and James left. That had been enlightening. He got into the car and it drove him home. He felt a little guilty for stringing Bob along, but he needed the information.

“How was it?”

“Enlightening,” James said as he entered.

“Okay, time for wish four.”

“Yes!”

“Excited?”

“Actually yes,” James nodded. “Now that we’ve sorted my physical side out, it’s time to work on my mental capabilities.”

“Want to fly?”

James laughed, paused, “you’re serious?”

“Indeed.”

“While cool I don’t want to be too overpowered.”

“Why not?”

“No fun. I like a challenge.”

“When you were young, you didn’t.”

“Well as the Maester said to Jon Snow, kill the boy.”

“Indeed.”

“So wish four,” James said. “I wish to have my mind; my abilities and my physical and mental changes all sent back to the body of my 14 year old self on the day that my sister asked if I wanted to see her tits. This would be in the morning so I have time to adjust to being in my youth.”

“Wish granted.”

There was a flash of light and James blinked and looked around the room.

“Holy shit.”

“Last wish,” Gin said.

“I wish to free you from your magical bondage, while maintaining your magical abilities and keeping my wishes intact at the same time.”

“James, are you sure?”

“Yes.

“If you do this, there is no going back.”

“I was at the end of my life, Gin, and now I’m at the start and about to see some tits. What more could a man want.”

Gin laughed, “My favourite turd, wish granted.”

The Djinn flicked his fingers and vanished.

That was it.

He was back!

The Djinn was gone and James was on his own. From this point he would have no support at all; rise or fall, it would be up to him.

The first thing he did was take in the state of his room and grimace. He stared as the reality of it all soon dawned on him.

“This place looks like shit,” he said to himself.

Back then, the first time around; he had been a typical teenager, mouthy and apathetic. He’d been a loser who no one seemed interested in. He didn’t have the brains for the smart kids or the brawn to be with the jocks, so he was sort of stuck in the middle of everything ... the Meg of high school. He perked up. At least this time around he could change that - his appearance as well as his attitude.

“Well, fuck me,” he uttered, “it’s really happening.”

James spun around

Holy shit ... he was the first person that he knew of that had actually teleported through time. Damn! He was excited now, feeling a sudden surge of energy. He blinked and looked at his room again, taking in actual detail this time.

AC/DC, Guns N’ Roses, Aerosmith and Metallica posters adorned his walls; they were his go-to bands at the time. Truth be told, they still were, even a few decades later. ‘Good times,’ he mused. It was better when smart phones became common. When that technology came out and he wasn’t reliant on cassettes and CD’s, it made getting music so much easier.