Most teenagers worry about curfew and homework.
You’re worried about explaining nuero-temporal travel to your razor-sharp, lie-sniffing mom…
And a mysteriously expensive electric bike you couldn’t possibly afford…
Your phone vibrates against your ribs like a nest of angry wasps. The fourth call in twenty minutes—each ringtone a sharper accusation than the last. Mom’s contact photo glares from the cracked screen: her arms crossed, eyebrow raised in that way that means you’re already in trouble before you even answer—even though she’s all smiles in this pic.
It’s strange: the hardest part about learning a piece of the cosmic blueprint to saving the universe is explaining to your mom why you missed curfew…
Around you, the Quantum Arcade stretches into shadows—rows of silent cabinets still standing like digital tombstones, their screens dark and lifeless. Dust motes dance through shafts of neon light that leak from the few working displays. Dust collects on the purple frame of that bicycle. The words “TREK-3040” still shine through that ashy film of dust. The air still tastes of ozone and neglect, with the faint electrical hum of dying circuits.
You stare at the ether rig in your hands. The sleek device that just showed you cosmic truths and universal healing now feels like it weighs nothing—lighter than a feather, lighter than air itself.
Where phantom pain once carved trenches through your nervous system, only peaceful silence remains. You flex your fingers experimentally. Roll your shoulders. Stretch your neck. The absence of phantom pain feels like escaping a torture chamber into paradise.
With the phantom pain vanished like smoke your synesthesia explodes back to full capacity. Colors become more vivid, patterns more complex, mathematical relationships clearer than they’ve ever been. It’s like someone just removed static from every frequency of your enhanced perception.
For the first time since the Temple explosion, you can see the full scope of your abilities—and you realize how much the phantom pain had been limiting you all along.
The Archivist instantly floods your thoughts—godlike power wrapped in such quiet grace. She wields The Cure like breathing. Your clumsy first attempt erased unimaginable phantom pains in seconds flat. You try to imagine humanity with even a fragment of that wisdom.
But that peaceful silence shatters when your phone buzzes again.
“Answer it,” the Archivist says, her voice carries through the ether rig speakers in a peculiar mix of ancient wisdom and motherly concern. “She’s been worried sick.”
Your thumb hovers over the green button. Through the screen, Mom’s eyes seem to bore straight into your soul with that supernatural parent ability to detect lies from three counties away.
You swipe to answer.
“WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?!” The words explode from the speaker with enough force to make you flinch. In the background, you hear the familiar sounds of home—the dishwasher’s gentle hum, the evening news murmuring from the living room, the domestic symphony you’ve taken for granted your entire life.
“Mom, I can explain—”
“You said you’d be at Dakota’s by seven! It’s past eleven! I called Dakota’s house three times and their mom said you never showed up. I called Level Up Games and they said you left hours ago. Ms. Lenora from downstairs has been driving me around town looking for you like some kind of lunatic!”
Each word hits like a physical blow. You can picture her pacing the kitchen, one hand pressed to her forehead in that gesture that means her migraine is building. The guilt tastes metallic, sharp against your tongue.
“I know you’re angry, but—”
“Angry. Angry?? Do you have any idea what goes through a mother’s mind when their child just disappears? When every phone call could be the hospital? When every knock on the door could be the police? I’m not angry. No — more like terrified…”
Her voice cracks on the last word. Not the controlled crack of maternal manipulation, but the raw break of genuine fear. In all your years of typical teenage rebellion, you’ve never heard her sound like this—small and afraid and human.
Words die in your throat. The last thing you ever wanted was to disappoint her, scare her, make her voice fracture like broken glass.
“I’m sorry, Ma—it’s just—”
The Archivist’s voice bleeds through the ether rig’s hidden speaker like smoke through cracks in reality: “The bike. Tell her about the bike.”
You look up. There it sits—the TREK-3040 Power-Assisted Electric Bike. It’s sleek carbon fiber frame still managing to gleam through a layer of dust under the dim arcade lights, purple gel saddle like a beacon of hope. The bike Mom’s been eyeing in shop windows for months, the one she always touches briefly before checking the price tag and walking away with that careful smile that says ‘maybe someday…’
“Seriously?!” you whisper into the ether rig. “Yes — this bike was meant for her,” the Archivist’s voice whispers back. “Why do you think I had it brought here in the first place?”
The Archivist has a way of dropping a ton of bricks on you like that. Before your mind can drift on the last words she uttered, you redirect your focus on the bike staring you in the face.
Its chrome handlebars now somehow catches new shimmers of light that weren’t there before in your mind. But that still doesn’t explain why you’d been missing for six hours. Golden geometric arrays began forming in your mind…
“Mom,” you begin, your voice steadier now. “I got you something.”
Silence stretches across the connection. You can almost hear her mental gears shifting, confusion replacing panic.
“What?”
“Remember that bike you’ve been looking at? The one with the purple saddle at the bike store down the street?”
“The TREK 3040? What does this have to do with—”
“I got one for you.”
The words hang in the air between you, carried by radio waves and hope. You hear her sharp intake of breath, the soft sound of her sitting down heavily in her favorite kitchen chair.
“That’s… that’s impossible. That bike costs $3,000. How’d you get that kind of money.”
“I’ve been — working.” The lie tastes bitter, but it’s wrapped around a tiny bit of truth. “Odd jobs — around town. Little things. I wanted to surprise you, so I kept it secret.”
“Odd jobs?” Her voice wavers between disbelief and desperate want-to-believe. “What kind of odd jobs?”
Your synesthesia kicks in, painting probability threads across your vision. Golden paths show successful explanations; red ones spell disaster. You choose your words like a navigator plotting through dangerous waters.
“There was this girl—Skye—whose art supplies got stolen. I helped her get them back — well sort of.” Your mind reshapes the memory of the ink crisis into something Mom might believe. “And this injured guy in the park—I helped him get away from this huge mean — dog that was chasing him. He let me read his journal of his travels all over the world…”
The words flow easier now, each transformed truth building on the last. “Then there’s Nina—she needed help tracking down her cat Whiskers. Spent hours helping her search the neighborhood for Whiskers. She was really worried about him and paid well once I delivered him to her.”
You pause, choosing your next words carefully. “But the biggest jobs came from this woman online, she calls herself The Archivist. She’s been teaching me advanced — computer networking—working with really cutting-edge technology. Some of her clients are these… tech brands. Real up-and-coming companies. Some high end tech they call tethering — some really experimental tech that I still barely understand.”
“You…” Her voice grows smaller, softer. “You’ve bought me a bike?”
I got you a bike. The Archivist needed help finding something in her old storage unit—decades of stuff just sitting there collecting dust.”
Your synesthesia paints the memory in golden threads as you weave truth into fiction.
“That’s where I saw the bike. Told her it was my mom’s dream bike, the one you’ve been looking at for months. She said someone your age should never have to walk everywhere, so she let me have it for helping her out.”
Patterns keep emerging in your mind as you visualize yourself in that storage unit, dust motes dancing in afternoon light around a pristine Trek frame. “She told me it was just taking up space in the back corner.” The lie tastes sweet because the sentiment rings true. “You deserve to have that feeling.”
A sound escapes her—half laugh, half sob. “Oh, honey…”
Then her voice shifts, all the fear and fury she’s been holding back for hours finally breaking free. “But what you did tonight—that was the most selfish, reckless, absolutely STUPID thing you have ever done in your entire life!”
You didn’t respond, just let her get it all out…
Her words come faster now, “Do you have any idea what goes through my head when you just vanish? The things I imagine? I called the police! I called every friend you’ve ever had! I searched every ditch and hospital parking lot because I thought—” Her voice breaks. “I thought something terrible had happened to you.”
The silence stretches between you, heavy with all the terror she’s carried alone.
“Don’t you EVER—and I mean EVER—do that to me again. Do you understand me?”
Then, softer, her voice cracking with exhaustion: “But… thank you. This is the most thoughtful thing anyone’s ever done for me.”
After a thorough wipe down — you climb onto the bike, adjusting the seat to your height. The purple gel cushion feels perfect beneath you, engineered comfort that speaks of quality and care. As you push off, the bike responds like liquid silk—every bearing smooth, every gear precise.
The night air flows over your face as you glide through LA. Familiar streets now feel different. After what you’ve experienced, every corner now holds new possibilities. Every shadow might conceal doorways to other times, other lives.
Your phone buzzes with a text: “Ride safe. I’ll put the kettle on. You can tell me about these mysterious jobs of yours..”
Followed by another message: “I love you♥”
No anger now. Just love and the maternal instinct to protect what matters most.
You pedal harder, the bike’s gears shifting smoothly as you climb the hill toward home. One and on the handlebar, the other securing your skateboard in your lap. Behind you, the city spreads like a circuit board, lights connecting in patterns that your enhanced perception reads like a language. Power grids and data streams and the invisible flow of human connection. In the distance, you can almost imagine the outline of AetherPoint floating on the horizon, its neon glow a reminder of worlds beyond this one.
But ahead lies home. The smell of Mom’s late-night tea. Homework waiting on your desk and the comforting weight of ordinary problems—upcoming pop quizzes, college applications, teenage concerns that suddenly feel both trivial and precious.
Your phone buzzes again, this time with a message from an unknown number:
“You did well today. Rest now. Tomorrow brings new adventures.
—Your faithful Archivist”
You reply back, “How exactly did you get a physical bike into that arcade?”
“There are others,” she replies simply. “Flesh and blood allies just like you — preparing for what’s surely coming.”
“How many others???” you probe further…
Silence.
You wait a few minutes with no response until you get the hint. You give her last message a “heart”, then delete the conversation before slipping the phone into your pocket. The ether rig sits hidden in your backpack, dormant but ready. KNOXX waits in digital shadows, promising infinite mysteries and impossible journeys.
The extraordinary world of the KNOXX future will still be there tomorrow. It always is — expanding and evolving.
But tonight, you immerse yourself in The Other World — here you have tea to drink and stories to tell and homework that suddenly doesn’t seem so terrible. The world with electric bicycles and kitchen conversations with mom…
And that’s more than enough for now…