I wake up, bleary-eyed and near-comatose, to the blaring of my phone alarm. 

Ugh, that time of morning already? Out of habit, I slide the slider to “snooze”. At least it’s Friday… I’ll have the weekend to myself tomorrow.

Still half-asleep, I get up and head over to the bathroom, stepping over a couple piles of unsorted laundry. Evicting the taste of sleep out my mouth, I brush my teeth while staring myself dead-eyed in the mirror. The minty-fresh toothpaste smell reminds me of food. Why? I don’t know. I’ve been hungry a lot more lately. Must be all the stress.

Last night’s dinner was nice. Sadly, Lysander’s brief excursion to the Patchworld took a lot out of him, so once Leon’s bingo game finished Lysander hit him up for a ride back. I hope Lysander didn’t think badly of my home… I mean, the merger already got accepted, so he’ll have to warm up to it eventually.

Warm up… yeah, I gotta warm up too. It’s always freezing in the mornings — I keep forgetting to turn the heater on. Too much of a hassle.

After a quick shower and change of clothes I heat up a couple frozen waffles in the microwave. Once those are done I dump them into a plastic takeout container, a reminder of how I always bite off more than I can chew… or buy more than I can finish, anyway. No butter or syrup since I forgot to buy those the last time I went shopping, but the chocolate chips embedded in the waffles make up for the lack of flavor otherwise. They’re not as crispy as I would like, those waffles, but they’re better than nothing… 

I rub the sleep out of my eyes as I eat, checking my phone for the time. 

The time is… ten in the morning… ah, shit! That was my alarm for the monorail! 

I’m gonna be late, damn it! I shove the rest of the waffle down my throat, following it with a chaser of tap water in a slightly dusty glass. Once that’s down, I slip on my creased dress shirt and wrinkled slacks from yesterday, getting ready to head out when I’ve made sure everything’s still in my work bag and no spiders have nested in my shoes since last night. I don’t bother to open the curtains in my apartment, because by the time I get back it’ll be nighttime anyway and it’ll all be pointless — time is a flat circle and the cycle repeats ad infinitum, yadda yadda yadda.

Luckily, the nearest monorail station is the 50th floor of my apartment complex; unluckily, I live on the 13th floor. It’ll be fine, I’ll run up the stairs and get my daily cardio out of the way instead of taking the elevator. All the way up there…

On second thought, I’m taking the elevator. There’s about six that service the building, running the gamut between “pretty fast” and “slow as hell”. I get a good one, fortunately, and ride it to floor 50 just in time to catch the next monorail.

The station isn’t much of a formal station like they apparently used to have, back before I was born. It’s just a stop for people to get on and off at the ends and beginnings of their days. Scanners installed in the frames of hydraulic sliding doors automatically scan your body once you get on, and once you disembark they register where you get off. We don’t have to pay for the monorail service, at least; that means I have more cash to get fancy cheeses and nice meals whenever I feel like it. I don’t usually feel like fancy cheese, but more pocket money is always good.

Monorail trains are sleek, painted cylinders, pointed at one end to maximize aerodynamics or something like that. They remind me of bullets. The train cars have their wheels on the top, suspended from the rail, and from the outside they look like bats hanging upside-down… I’ve heard they can reach top speeds of up to 100km/hr. Looking out through the long, elliptical windows on either side, it’s probably true — the scenery around me blurs into a rush of colors, and I’m glad our engineering grads are good enough to keep those windows airtight. 

I play some games on my phone to pass the time. Usually, it only takes a couple of rounds before the train reaches my stop, but about 10 games fly by before I finally think to look up to see what’s going on.

The world outside the window isn’t moving — we must have ground to a complete stop. I check the time. It’s 11 AM already, but on a good day this commute would’ve only been 10 minutes long. What’s the problem? Can’t be traffic, there’s no traffic up here, so why…

I lean back and try to get some shut-eye. This shit is too weird. Missing my alarm is one thing; public transport not running, well, that’s just… at least I’ll have an excuse…

It feels like not even a couple minutes pass before my stop gets announced. I step off the train and onto the platform outside my workplace’s reception — the second floor of the Patchwork Conglomerate’s headquarters.

HQ is massive, of course. It's an eye-watering 108 stories tall, not including the basement floor, and the eight highest floors are reserved exclusively for the big boss — the Patchwork God himself. I'm a small fry in the grand scheme of things, so my place in the food chain is around the fifth floor. Those Survey Team people must be scattered around the rest of the layers; actually, I’ve never seen them before that initial expedition, so I’ve got no idea where they work.

Past the sliding doors of the entrance, I scan my floor and pray I don’t get docked for being late; there’s nobody around; it seems like I might be able to get away with my lateness… maybe I can just hide under one of the cubicle desks and stay real quiet. 

Wait, who’s that over there?

In some crazy coincidence, the only person around is Vita — her blue-tinged hair glows faintly in the noon light as she busies herself with typing up what looks like last year’s dusty spreadsheets.

Vita nods at me. “Michael. It’s good to see you here.”

“What’s up, Vita?” I return her greeting with a wave of my own. “Where’s everyone else?”

She returns my return with a return to filing paperwork. “They’ve completed their daily tasks, so they have returned home.”

“Already?! But it’s only…” I read the time off my phone’s lock screen. “1 PM?”

Wait, what's going on? This doesn't make any sense.

“What time was it when you arrived?” Vita asks.

“It was 10 AM when I woke up, and in the middle of my commute it was 11 AM… but it can't have taken two whole hours to get here, damn it!”

She gives me a knowing smile. “Ah, you must have experienced relative time dilation. The shockwaves sent out when two worlds merge together do have that kind of effect.”

“Huh, how’s that work? Shouldn’t it be a smooth process, what with all our advanced technology and all?”

Vita gets a weird look on her face, something between ‘I accidentally bit into a lemon’ and ‘I can’t wait to say this’. “The exact details of the technology used in the merging process are unknown to me, but rest assured my earlier explanation of ‘spacetime fabric’ is still an appropriate turn of phrase.

“If the warp guns are 'seam-rippers', then the technology our CEO is using is a ‘needle and thread’, if that makes sense. I believe this is an apt comparison because, during the hand-sewing process, the person sewing has to pull the string tight with every stitch — causing the fabric to ripple where it isn’t pinned down. It’s similar for mergers. Further progress causes time and space to distort, especially in areas closest to the center of the distance between the two worlds. The disturbances vary in frequency and amplitude, but usually the size of the area being merged is a good indicator for—”

“So you’re saying the boss is a quilt-making grandma?”

“I suppose you could say that…” Vita’s lemon-eating face morphs into a nonplussed mask. “But he isn’t; he is an executive decision-maker on a tight schedule, and thus… I believe his rationale is to slow down time so that… he might accomplish more work in a smaller time-frame?”

How much of this does she actually believe? “Do you seriously—” 

Before I can finish, I’m interrupted by two more familiar faces walking in from the other side of the room, where the elevators are.

“Ahh,” Anis yawns, “feels so good to be back.” 

Behind her is Leon, holding something wrapped in tinfoil that smells vaguely of turmeric. Could be lunch or dinner.

“Oh? Are you only now arriving?” Vita replies.

Like a cat in a patch of sunlight, Anis stretches her arms out and yawns some more. “Those 8:30 AM classes are no joke, Vita!”

“What are you two doing here?” I ask. “I thought you’d be out on more expeditions.”

“It’s been kind of a slow week for surveys, so I decided to actually turn up to lectures for once. Besides, I’m only a part-timer, remember?” She winks.

“Right, right.” I cast a spurious glance over at Leon.

Leon smirks at me, crows’ feet bunching up around the corners of his eyes. “Don’t act surprised. Even though I’m a full-time surveyor, I still do my fair share of number-crunching.”

The boss finds a use for all of us, huh…

“There isn’t much work today, Michael,” Vita says. “I would recommend you take this time to go home and start your weekend early.”

So she’s looking out for my welfare. I’ll look out for hers. “You got any weekend plans?”

She shakes her head. “Not as such. My request for living quarters was accepted some time ago, so it’s unlikely I’ll be anywhere else but here.”

“Huh! Now that’s dedication.” I flick my question over to the others. “How about you two?”

Anis grins. “I’ve got an essay to write, but it’s not due for a while… so, in the meantime, I’ll be spending my time procrastinating and going out with friends!”

“What about you, Clark?” asks Leon. Smooth move, old man, deflect and don’t explain. 

Not like I have any good answers to give him. “I’m not doing much, honestly.” I scratch the back of my neck, feeling suddenly very itchy. “Is there anything I can do around here? I’ll try to make myself at least a little useful…”

Anis hums to herself. “You could always try checking up on some of the newly-accepted worlds we went through. That last one seems like a fun place to vacation — I mean, inspect!”

“Oh, that’s cool, but aren’t you guys all busy?”

“Technically,” Vita starts, “you aren’t required to have the minimum of four squad members from the second field mission onwards, but—”

“Really? Why not?”

Leon’s turn to speak. “Most field agents get skilled enough from the first mission that they’ll go solo for easier fieldwork.” He sighs. “If you’re dead-set on going back, Clark, you’d better get a team together — if you thought what you saw before was weird, you ain’t seen nothing yet.”

“It’s one world, and I’ve been there before. I don’t think it’ll take more than me for a brief visit.”

“Clark.” Leon frowns at me, the many lines of his face drawn taut and thin. “You’re a paper-pusher who filled in for a sick guy once. No matter how prepared you think you are, you’re not trained for this. I don’t know what the hell you’re doing, rushing into danger all by yourself, but I’m warning you as best as I can that you’re going to regret it if something goes wrong.”

I can’t see my father in him anymore — he’s acting more like my mother. Was he always this paranoid? “Leon, seriously, I’ll be fine. I don’t need a four-person squad just for a visit.”

“C’mon, Mike! At least take one of us with you!” Anis pleas. She starts twirling a strand of hair around her finger — some kind of nervous tic, or maybe an attempt to look less desperate. “You’re, like, inexperienced… and stuff.”  

“And you haven’t even graduated college yet.”

“Hey, I’m about to!” Anis huffs in annoyance, crossing her arms and turning her head away from me. “Just another semester to go!”

Another semester… She reminds me of my little brother. He was always talking like he was more advanced than his age… wait, was? He’s not dead yet. Why did I think that? Maybe I should visit home again, see him and my parents… it’s been too long.

“Anyways,” Anis continues, “aren’t you almost 40-something?” 

I shake my head. “No, not for 10 years I’m not…”

“Okay, 30-something and still inexperienced, tsk tsk.”

Leon smirks. “Lay off him, Hoshizora. Kid’s gotta grow up someday.”

I guess I changed his mind, but… “Who are you calling a kid? I’m well over drinking age!”

“You’re young enough to be my son, is all I’m saying.” Leon gives me a paternal nudge to the upper back. “Now, don’t get yourself killed out there."