Adam felt like he was slipping from one dream into another, caught in a limbo where time and space didn’t exist, and his memory was as slippery as soapy water.

  Someone was asleep in his bed—a person wearing… a lab coat?—while he shaved in the bathroom after his morning shower. He was in a rush; the lawyers were waiting for him.

  Just as he was about to yell, ‘Time to get up!’ to make that intruder leave his bed, the daylight reached out with an ethereal arm and touched the mirror in front of him. Blinded by the reflection, he turned his gaze away.

  No. That light didn’t come from the bathroom window, nor was it that bright. It was just a touch of light filtering through the slats of the blinds… in his bedroom.

  But what about the lawyers?

  Wait a minute! What lawyers?

  The muffled murmur of city traffic began to touch his ears, and then he realized—he’d been dreaming. He was at home, and he had just woken up.

  Still with his eyes swimming in sleep, Adam opened his amber eyes, and the memories of the night before came back to him: the soft music, the dimly lit bar, people chatting, and the taste of drinks… so many drinks.

  He stayed in bed, his light skin standing out against the dark sheets.

  He turned over—and there it was. The intruder from his dream? No. It was a girl, lying face down next to him, naked—not in some silly lab coat—with one foot playfully kicked up, elbows resting on the bed, arms raised and phone held in front of her face; as relaxed as if she were lounging on the beach.

  “Hey, gorgeous,” he greeted, stretching.

  “Hey…” she replied, still absorbed in whatever she was typing. “Hey—” she turned to him, “Want to know what my friend Tiffany says about you?”

  Adam rolled his eyes, the look on his face saying, ‘Here we go again.’

  “Lemme guess. That I’m a terrible person you should stay away from immediately? Tell your friend Tiffany to get more original.”

  The girl giggled. “That you’re a magnet for one-night flings, no promises of stability,” she said, rereading a long message from this Tiffany. “That your glamorous reputation and success in business are the only remarkable things about you. And listen to this: ‘His prodigious skill at playing the hand he was dealt at birth has catapulted him to where he is.’ Hmm… Well, then she says that any emotional gaps left from your past have been patched up with the snobby trappings of your almost recently acquired social status though.”

  Adam took in what he’d just heard, his face saying, ‘Well, didn’t see that one coming!’

  “Your friend Tiffany…” he said then. “Not sure if I should say ‘thanks’ or ‘excuse me,’ but that girl—she sure knows how to write an essay, I’ll give her that.”

  “Uh-huh, she’s a philosophy professor,” she replied.

  “Oh, right… Tiffany,” he nodded, a faint memory surfacing. “Yeah, I think we spent a few hours together. Delightful girl. Well, glad to know I’m not the only pretentious one who actually managed to do something interesting with their life.”

  With a swift move, Adam got out of bed. Pushing his slightly messy, medium-length auburn hair back, he grabbed his pants hanging on the railing in front of him and put them on.

  The bedroom was on an elevated platform, and from up there, like a king surveying his realm, he looked out over the vast wooden-and-steel loft that was his home. The living area with its cozy sofas, the lamps, the large photographs on the walls… There wasn’t a day he didn’t feel content in that space.

  He turned to the girl, who still seemed to have no intention of leaving the bed, and he almost broke his own habit to offer ordering some breakfast. But nature called, and he knew today wouldn’t be the day he changed his routine.

  “Well, time to head home,” he said, breaking the spell that bound the woman to her phone.

  She turned to him, confused. “We’re not staying here until nightfall? I thought we could order food and hang out.”

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  “I don’t think so,” Adam excused himself with that charming gesture that said, ‘I wish it were different, but what can you do?’—the same move that always dismantled any argument against him. “You know… Us mortals gotta work.”

  “Work? I thought the owners of big companies just handle everything with a few phone calls.”

  “Maybe the owners do, but I’m just the purchasing manager,” he said, only to get a scoff that made him pause. “Hey, what’s that sound? Does it mean ‘You know what I’m talking about’ or ‘I wasted the night with the wrong guy’?”

  She shrugged. “I don’t know, you tell me. I thought you were kinda rich or something, right?”

  Picking up his shirt from the floor, Adam shot her a look.

  “Well, I live comfortably, yeah. Your friend already said it—I’m good at business, and the company I work for pays me well. But do you know why they pay me well? Because I always show up to work.”

  “Hmm… I see.” Not entirely convinced, the girl searched for her dress, which was tangled in the sheets, and slipped it on.

  Trying to speed up the goodbye, Adam picked up her phone from the bed and handed it to her along with her purse. Then, with exaggerated chivalry, he gestured toward the staircase that led down from the bedroom platform and escorted her to the loft’s front door.

  Clack, clack, clack went her heels on the beautiful parquet floor. Squeak, squeak, squeak went his feet as he slid barefoot across the polished wood.

  “You have a girlfriend, don’t you?” she said, half-suspicious, half-accusing. “That’s why you’re rushing me out.”

  “What—? No.”

  “Oh, I know!” she snapped her fingers like she’d solved a puzzle. “You’re married and want me gone before she gets home!”

  Adam opened the door. “Barbara, we’re not playing 20 Questions.”

  “Grace,” she said. “My name’s Grace, not Barbara.”

  “Grace, right! Listen, Grace, do you want the truth? I don’t have a girlfriend and I’m not married. I just need some time alone… with the toilet, okay?”

  “Oh!” The girl blushed, then gave him a ‘You’re hopeless’ look and pointed to a large portrait on the wall near the living area sofas.

  It was a black-and-white photograph of Adam in his underwear, walking nearly naked among rocks on a seaside cliff. It was clearly a professional shot taken a few years back. Not only did he look younger in it, but if she compared the toned muscles and pristine abs captured by the camera to what she saw now… Well, while the real-life version didn’t look bad, it was clear that maintaining his physique was no longer the top priority of the homeowner.

  “You know what? My friend Tiffany was right about you,” she said, giving his abdomen a playful pat. “You did a lot to get here, but it’s time to take new paths and let go of the past completely.”

  Adam nodded slowly.

  “Goodbye, Grace, and say hi to Tiffany for me.” He kissed her goodbye.

  She winked at him. “See you tonight?”

  Adam smiled. “Maybe.”

  He closed the door and hurried to the bathroom to answer nature’s call.

  “Take new paths and let go of the past?” he repeated. “My prodigious skill at playing the hand I was dealt at birth? Huh! Why didn’t anyone warn me that poets and philosophers were running wild today?”

  The headquarters of Homam Enterprises was less than twenty-five blocks from Adam’s loft, so most days he preferred walking there. This might not seem like a big deal, but for someone living in Proxima, the capital of Chiron, avoiding the chaos of rush-hour traffic or the suffocating ride on the metro for who-knows-how-long to get to the office was a blessing.

  The grand Proxima, with its colossal skyscrapers, highways, and intricate elevated roads constantly bustling, alongside gardens and pathways that wound through the heights around the buildings, was nearly a living entity that could intimidate anyone.

  And if he ever needed a reminder, he only had to look at the faces of drivers stuck at red lights or the people dashing to catch the 11:00 a.m. train because they couldn’t afford to wait for the 11:05.

  “Manny, can’t you see it’s just a robot?”

  “What does it matter if it’s a robot? It’s programmed to watch over the damn cars, Claudia, and I wanna know where the hell mine is!”

  On his walks to and from work, Adam could witness scenes like this too: a middle-aged couple arguing with a parking meter robot, a quirky machine with arms and wheels.

  “Mr. Smith, your vehicle has been towed for violating traffic law 451. You will need to go to the…” the robot announced, indifferent to the man’s fury.

  Of course, there were also more pleasant encounters.

  As he crossed one of the bridges over an avenue, Adam passed a holographic city map reading ‘You Are Here’—just as two young women approached him. Tourists, by the way they dressed and the backpacks they carried.

  “Excuse me, could you tell us how to get to the Cyan District? I think we’re lost.”

  Adam kindly pointed out the directions on the projection.

  The map was a reconstruction of the city, divided into color-coded districts based on the RGB model: three interlocking circles—red at the top, green and blue below—forming new colors at the intersections: yellow, cyan, magenta, with white in the center.

  “So, if you take that subway line, you'll get off right at the nature reserve,” he explained. And since he wasn’t about to miss the chance to chat with some pretty girls, he asked, “Hey, where are you from?”

  The girls exchanged a laugh. “Was it our accent that gave us away? Or the backpacks?”

  “More than that—it was asking me about the map,” Adam chuckled. “A Proxima citizen might not know the name of the neighborhood they’ve lived in their whole life, but they sure know how to get from one color to another.”

  “Oh, got it! Yeah, we’re from Lobdell.”

  “Lobdell? No kidding! I used to visit Lobdell all the time… back when I worked as a model,” he said. He wasn’t about to pass up the chance to talk to girls—or to brag a little.

  “Oooh! Like a runway model? Were you famous?”

  “Nah, just a bit…” Adam replied, with a look of fake humility as big as his smile.

  Scenes like these were everyday occurrences. He experienced them while walking from his home in the Urie neighborhood on the edge of the Yellow District—a residential area—to his job in the Red District, a bustling zone full of shops and corporate buildings, including Homam Enterprises.