I have a job again, I said to nobody after hanging the receiver up and looking at the old school unit that no one that I knew still had because I had seen the unit in the Great Archives of the way things were in the days of my grandparents, before we had broken through the dimensional walls that separated all 6 Earths and knew for a fact that there were in fact more than just our Earth, though these other Earths weren't ours with different decisions which had different versions of us living lives that could be quite radical from Earth to Earth. No, these were Earths that were different becausue they were different.
But you know that since you're an intellectually curious person of the late 2070's and have taken your course on the 2020's which was the last decade touched by any Pandemic because that was the final decade before we made contact with the other Earths and benefitted from their greater technology.
It was a little disconcerting to find out that we were only Earth Three and were also the most primitive of all six Earths, but facts are facts and no amount of but butting would change either of those tidbits of reality.
But at least we were judged to be the fairest of all six, which sure made a lot of people happy.
No, not that fairest, the looks kind. We were dead last in the other fairest of course, which most people accepted with an of course we are.
Except for the haters of course They couldn't accept the new reality and most of them ended up going to Hater's Island and cut themselves off from the world while those that stayed underwent extensive therapy and were allowed to enjoy the greatness that had become our Earth.
That was of course long before my time and I should be enjoying the idyllic decades, but I haven't, not like my sister and my brother have or all of my classmates from Secondary, some of of whom I have known for almost the whole of my life.
Not that I have spoken with most of them since I graduated and did nothing of note.
Unless you consider failing to be of note, which I do not. At least not the good kind of noting.
So here I am, 43 and having to go to Earth Five to finally live my best life.
One that will take me from everything that I know for five years because Earth Five will not be this close to our Earth for another five years.
But that's by the most direct of routes, I could of course travel to Earth Four, Two and Earth 0 then our Three and come back more regularly, but the cost is more than I want to spend.
I didn't think it was good to add that part. It was better she thought that this was the way that it had to be.
Even better, she hadn't pressed the matter about the status of jobs on Earth 0, she'd only asked about the other Lettered Earths.
Yeah, I could have gotten a job on Earth 0, but I didn't want to live on an Earth where there was no possibility of developing super powers.
Besides, the money offered me on Earth Five was the most of all six Earths. So it was a no-brainer as I'd told her.
Just a less safe but more profitable one than it would have been on Earth 0.
But I'd decided that she didn't need to know those finer details.