Chapter 1

At age 25, I had invented the portable fusion generator. After making half a trillion dollars, I donated ten thousand of the generators to small towns in Africa, Asia, and South America. Only a few years later I become the world’s first multi-trillionaire. Soon after, I started doing a lot of charitable works and giving lots of money to help those in need. I got great satisfaction from rescuing the helpless, feeding the hungry, and giving the forsaken a chance at recovery. I did everything I could to benefit mankind. Several organizations approached me requesting money for drug prevention and treatment efforts. I was more than willing to help. My donation, by far the largest in history, helped quite a bit. Sadly though, a quarter trillion dollars wasn’t enough to totally stop the problem.

I was very old now, 104, and my health had started to fail. I still persisted in my quest for universal contentment. I’d closed my one remaining bank account a few minutes ago and was looking for a person to help with the little I had left. A young woman was pushing a baby stroller down the sidewalk. I saw her face had been marred by much grief, and she was far too thin. The carriage had a few rips in the fabric and rolled unevenly because of a damaged wheel. As the young mother approached me, I saw a stack of resumes in her hand and a look of desperation on her face. She pushed the baby past me in the decrepit carriage and a few steps later I saw a heel break off her shoe. She was already very depressed, and the shoe was the straw that broke the camel’s back. She sobbed. “No! Why today! I need to be at the interview in half an hour!”

I called to her, “Miss! Miss! I can help a little.” I grasped my walking stick tightly and held out some cash with my other hand. I nodded toward a shoe store across the street.

“Are you sure?”

“Please. You need it more than I do.”

I felt a terrible pain in my chest as she smiled and said, “Thank you!” She took the money and hobbled as she merrily pushed the baby across the street.

The pain worsened and I grasped my chest. I felt the weight of a hundred elephants crushing my heart. I fell to the sidewalk as I tried to gasp for air. A small metal and plastic cube fell into my hand I saw a small display screen on it, showing “Next: 00:02”

I heard a flapping noise, like a large bird would make. I looked up and thought I saw a pair of huge wings made of white feathers for an instant.

The tiny screen changed to “00:01”, and a second later I fell a short distance. I splashed into mud and a few inches of water. My arms and upper body were resting on a mudbank at the edge of a lake, and my legs were in the cool water. I saw the ruins of a castle ahead of me, and a human-sized blob of water sticking up from the lake’s surface. It changed to the shape of a beautiful woman.

The watery apparition spoke with a powerful voice which echoed off the hills. It seemed natural at the time, but later I wondered how I could understand her melodic Ancient Gaelic words. “I am the Lady of the Lake. I’ve waited three hundred years for you, to again help someone truly pure of heart. You gave eighty years of yourself to benefit the world. I give them back to your body.”

One of her fingers touched my forehead and the extreme pain in my chest disappeared. I could breathe easily and the wrinkles on my hands and arms rapidly faded. I felt like a new man, no older than twenty!

The magical and song-like voice continued, “You have been given an item of extreme technology, and it has brought you here. This world won’t see it’s like for another ten millennia. Keep it safe.” She waved her hand, and the cube was suddenly on a gold chain around my neck.