To Live In A Familar Yet Different World

(Carter POV)

Boredom immunity is such an amazing perk.

For hours, I had just been exercising and practicing my jumps, and while progress was slow, I knew eventually I would have the whole world to travel. Excitement bubbled under my skin as I went from end to end in my warehouse, yet I never found myself getting bored.

The pure feeling of freedom, the speed, and the possibilities were all within my grasp, and all I needed was time. And thanks to the jump chain, that is something I have in great quantity in addition to the fact that my perks have made it so that I rarely even need to take a break or even rest, for that matter. The pure strength within each part of my body feels as if I could crush a rock in my hand if I focused.

But other than the more metaphorical boons, it also relates to how liberating it was simply to be. I don't have to worry about deadlines or having to work multiple jobs.

Honestly, I didn't even need all the powers or abilities if I could just have this boredom perk as well as future knowledge in a normal world. At least a guy like me, or anyone else like me for that matter, could go far.

And while that seems rather generic, it was also humbling in a way as by the very nature of the jump chain existing, it means that there are other jumpers across the Multiverse as well going across their own chains. But I have a feeling that I won't be meeting any of them for at least a very, very long time. And I'm rather happy about that, as I would expect most of them to be rather eccentric, to say the least, even if that is a bit of a hypocritical statement.

Reaching to grab a towel, I wiped the sweat from my brow and breathed as I just finished up a multi-hour exercise session. Sitting down on the exercise machine, I wiped off the sweat and grime from the seat. While I could stop that altogether, getting rid of basic things so early felt wrong. It was as if I was playing as a human in a way.

I never really had the time to do so many things. It had never even occurred to me how much I missed. So now I just want to reach the next day, and the next, and the next. Placing those thoughts aside, I grabbed the money that I took from those crims and walked out of the building towards the New Cadia Bank. Ironically enough, it was on Wall Street, so I felt as if I had to dress a bit more decently, so I took some of the money to the clothes store and bought a decent suit.

It wasn't anything ridiculous, costing $175 for a decent one, which, compared to 2023, was a godsend as suits then could cost up to $400 for a normal suit. Buttoning up the shirt, I walked into the bank carrying the bags of money in duffel bags, and as I walked over to the counter, I paged a teller, and a guy walked over with a smile on his face.

"Welcome, sir, to the bank of New Cadia! Are you here to make a deposit?" It was almost odd how happy he seemed, and while I have heard of people who actually enjoyed their jobs, I have never actually seen it, and even now, it's a bit off-putting.

"Yes, I should already have an account with his bank, and I am here to deposit five million dollars." Again, the oddity continued as he looked over the cash with barely a hint of suspicion and looked back at me after grabbing the bags.

"Well, the money seems good, and it's being loaded into your account it may take a few minutes due to the pure amount, and it's being physical instead of digital is there anything else you would require, sir?" Okay, this is weird, but I am going to attribute this to my account being a jump-chain-backed item, so I shook my head.

"No, that's all I need. But am I able to get a card to access my money?" The teller then nodded and typed away at his rather advanced computer for the early 2000s, but after a few seconds, he asked for a photo ID, and as I gave him my driver's license, he took a picture and smiled.

" Well, everything seems to be in order. Give me a minute to grab a card from the back for you to use." My expression must have amused him as he walked away, chuckling to himself.

What surprised me was the speed of getting a new debit card, as compared to getting one that would take weeks in my previous life. What is this place? So many questions fired off in my mind as the man returned with a normal-looking debit card.

"Here you are, Mister Davenport. Since this is the first time you have used our card, this one is free, but if you lose it, you will have to file for a new one at a cost. Here is the number for customer service. Don't worry about filing your taxes, as a free service of ours allows you to get a set amount sent to you by us so you know what you're paying and how much. I wish you a good day." I could do little else but nod and exit the bank, utterly baffled by the absurdity of this bank.

Before leaving, though, I heard him shout, " Make sure to give me a good review. The name is Lapis, by the way!" But as he finished, I was already out of the bank.

After I walked out, it only got stranger, as when I turned around, the building was gone, and in its place was an empty building that could be bought. Blinking and rubbing my eyes, I turned away and quickly walked away while looking over my shoulder. I do admit that I was shaking a small bit as that building had just appeared and disappeared, and no one even noticed.

Walking into an alley, I placed my hands against the wall and took a breath, trying to grasp what had just happened. My reality just shattered for me, and no one else would know. Yet, for them, it just was probably as easy as tipping a hat. Now sufficiently terrified, I walked behind a dumpster and jumped back to the alley near my apartment. I was five million richer and had a way to funnel my cash into a secure place.

I heard something hitting my door, though I exited my apartment and saw the daily newspaper. Picking it up and walking back inside, I checked today's headlines and saw on the front page in a small corner how a bank managed to be robbed while no one was found on cameras or even exiting the vault. I knew who it was and why he did it, and this gave me a timeline to work with.

I was tempted to jump over to the kid's house or apartment in the city and let him know about the paladins. Still, my desert plant drawback made me even more apprehensive about talking to another jumper or teleporter in this case. David, for me, was an interesting case as he is a realistic take on how a person down on their luck would use their powers.

Also, it kind of made sense for him to use it for himself, as it is harder to move items while teleporting than it is just to teleport yourself. The only offensive aspect of being able to teleport is that you can do multiple teleportation jumps in order to increase your velocity and essentially increase the mass behind your punch. Speaking of which, I wonder if I can get Griffin to see if he could teach me that trick, but I would have to find him, and I would rather figure myself out rather than expand.

That and the drawback made the paladins even more incensed in trying to hunt me: all it would take was one accidental jump in front of a paladin that was hiding in a crowd, and they would be on me faster than fire on gasoline. For now, I have to take baby steps for myself. So I walked back outside and headed to an electronics store to buy a phone. Since the hotel where my apartment was had Wi-Fi, I didn't really need an internet connection, but I would need a phone provider.

So, after finding an Apple store, I grabbed an iPhone 3 and bought it for $200 after setting up an upgrade plan, which would include me being able to buy newer products at a monthly rate once I got them after turning in my phone, that is. Before, I would have been afraid of joining these plans, but now that I had the money to back it up, I wanted to spoil myself a bit.

It was nothing insane, as I had just gotten a haircut and grabbed groceries at a nearby Walmart. Still, I never rushed. I took my time and just walked through the city, and when I did teleport back to my apartment, I did so after heading into camera less alleys.

I didn't want to just walk into a bathroom and teleport away because, with the paladin's connection to the NSA, they would be able to view nearly every camera across the country. When they see a person entering somewhere but not leaving, that could send up red flags. But what's great is that CCTV technology hasn't advanced to the point where there's basically a camera everywhere, so there are some countries I would be able to go to without alerting the paladins.

Even with my Trackless perk, which may cover for me in terms of just pure cameras or them finding traces of DNA anywhere, I can't always assume these things will work. I need to be smarter than that.

It makes me wonder how David jumped everywhere and never got caught until later in life, but I could excuse it for plot convenience and his Mother being a high-ranked Paladin herself, helping to cover his tracks. Yet even with these restrictions, I could basically teleport anywhere as long as it wasn't any major cities, and even then, once I got to those cities, all I would need to do was just set up safe areas to jump through buying properties under my name.

The only drawback of that is I would have to most likely take planes in order to excuse my being there or get a private jet to keep them under the illusion that I use it. But that is for future Carter to deal with. For now, I went into the warehouse, turned the PC on, and set up my stocks.

I made my way through the list, and after buying a decent amount of shares, I went to do the same with companies like YouTube and Amazon, all of which barely had stock prices of over three dollars. I kept my percentages low but just enough to get decent returns from them if I ever decided to sell them eventually.

The most expensive stocks were Google as they, even with the recession, cost over one hundred dollars a stock, but I knew they would be worth it. After my spending spree, I had used over five thousand dollars on stocks, which would go up massively in a few years. Even if the stocks fell, I could just steal more cash from criminals as there was no shortage of those guys.

In most countries, money from the US is convertible to other currencies. Never mind if I ever find gold in one of my exciting "walks." Sitting back in my chair that came with the PC in my warehouse, I felt secure financially for a decent time now. I may buy more stocks in the future, but for now, I still have over five million dollars and more to gain.

A bit of greed filled my being as I looked at my empty warehouse and thought, " What to fill all this space with?" Smiling to myself, I closed the computer and returned to working out as I contemplated what to focus on. Learning about possible jump worlds? Learning martial arts? Catching up on culture? So many options and so much time.

Lifting a weight over my shoulder, I thought to start small, read a book, learn new languages, learn to play that one instrument I never got to learn or just live. Specifically for learning languages it would be a simple process as thanks to my perk "That Means Hello In Chinese," it would increase my aptitude to learn to read, write, and speak new languages.

It may seem a bit redundant because I have the universal translation perk, but that only works verbally, and I still wouldn't be able to read or write anything in other languages. So I had stuff to work for and so much stuff to find. But I also have to promise myself not to get drunk as I'm unsure if I would be able to control my teleportation if I ever got drunk, so that's a bit of a bummer.

Unless I managed to sneak some wine into my warehouse, as I haven't been able to teleport out of my warehouse due to it being in its own pocket dimension, that's at least a possibility.

I do admit to being a bit of a wuss as I could never really get into drinking as I convinced myself that I was too scared to do it, or maybe I just never had the time for it. I always had to give 100%, always and every day. I had to..I had to. Forcing a shaky breath, I sat down on the deadlift bench and re-composed myself.

Grasping at my arms, I tried to calm myself, and after a few minutes, I did while berating myself for still doing that. This was my second chance. I couldn't look back; I never looked back. I didn't know how long I sat there, but as I looked over to the electronic clock in the gym area, I saw that it was already 9:00 at night, so I put the weights away, went to my apartment, and laid down on the bed.

I fell asleep as soon as I hit the pillow. But I never smiled that night. I don't think I ever have.

(There may be a time skip in the next chapter, as the Jumper movie is rather boring in terms of danger. This jump world may be shorter along with other movie jumps because their stories are rather self-contained and short.)

(Also, this may be the horny talking, but how would you guys like lewd jump worlds in the future?)