My little shopping spree cost me no more than $8,520. It hurt to see the sum vanishing from my account like that, but I was happy. I was certain I had not wasted my money; on the contrary, I was investing it in my future as well as a newly established connection with the woman named Tina, who was exactly what I was looking for! She was a treasure trove in the form of a mountain of broken devices and abandoned tech, which I could acquire at a fraction of their production cost. Each of them was like a gift of knowledge that not even the top universities on this planet could offer me.

Yesterday, I was just a normal human in an inhuman world, and now... it seems I’ve joined it as well.

With the money I had in my bank account now, I could cover all of my student loans, and inside my contact list, there was one in particular who could make headlines wherever I went. I had a direct line to one of the most powerful heroines on this planet.

So, in this world, where superpowers, aliens, and supernatural abilities were common, there were those who excelled in them by a great margin. It mattered not if you were psychic when the only thing you could do was read one mind once a day. Or if you were a supernatural, and the most you could do was pop up some animal ears and have better hearing than most. It was like having one extra trick to show off at a party, and that was it.

With a groan escaping my lips, and a sense of stiffness spreading through my body, I opened my eyes and found myself staring at an unknown rooftop. There were cracks, a bit of mold and even a water leak spreading across the ancient paint. Turning my head, I saw a stash of garbage neatly piled up in bags and cardboard boxes that have seen the foundation of this city, and a simple table made out of wood with a single wood chair under it. It looked new and at the same time like it was handmade by a caveman.

Reborn as the child of an average family in a little place called Broken Bow in Nebraska, I grew up in the most normal way possible without ever revealing my past life memories. It was not as though I was afraid or scared of this but rather that if I faked being a genius, it would end up biting me in the ass later on. This was the States, not good ol’ Europe.

The 1st of January 2027, the start of a new year, the beginning of new promises, new hopes, new dreams.

Just like many others, I too believed that I would finally have the chance to turn my life around yet... here I was... hanging on for dear life by a piece of broken rebar sticking out of the cracked pavement of the Golden Gate Bridge. My left arm was limp, broken and my right leg was pulsing with pain, my vision was blurry, and my breathing was heavy. Another piece of rebar was sticking out of my stomach.