System Architect

I pushed the covers down and swung my feet off the bed. I only had on a t-shirt and underwear—my typical nightwear even as an adult—so putting on some more clothes would be a good idea. I distinctly remembered the house not having air conditioning and the heat was not oppressive inside my room, so summer was out of the question. I glanced out the window to help gauge the season. There were flowers on pretty much everything, so I pegged it as being mid to late spring. Pants would probably be fine.

I made my bed out of habit before exiting into the hallway. The hallway was fairly short. My room was on one end, with my parents’ room to my right. Past their room—still on the right—was the bathroom. To my left was a banister running the length of the hallways to separate it from the stairs down to the first floor. At the other end of the hallway, just past the bathroom, was my dresser. Closet bedrooms didn’t typically have their own closets, so the hallway was mine.

I rooted through my dresser for some pants, making sure to check their sizes. The majority were XS with some smalls here and there. From what I knew of clothing after dating someone who had a child, that meant I was somewhere around five or six years old.

On a hunch, I pulled up the screen with the timer on it. If my rough estimate for time of year was correct, then the timer looked to expire on either my birthday or new years—those were only about a week apart. Yeah, my birthday being Christmas was always a hoot. Pretty much cut the number of presents by at least a third, and left no celebrations to look forward to for a year. Definitely not something I’d grumbled about for years. No sir, not me!

With my pants on, I hopped into the bathroom to brush my teeth before heading downstairs. The bottom of the stairs faced the front door. Turning around to the left was a short hallway that led to an absolutely minuscule kitchen. The kitchen had a small range/oven combo, about two feet of counter space, and an enormous farmhouse-style sink. There was no room for a fridge—that was down the stairs in the basement—or for a table and chairs—those were in the other hallway that came out of the kitchen.

I walked through the kitchen and into the adjoining hallway. That hallway led to the sun room—which had the big dining table for when guests were over—at one end and had a parlor-style living room accessible in the middle across from a small table with three chairs. Dad was seated at the table—phone in hand—eating the blandest of all cereals. A cup of steaming Joe sat within easy reach.

Seeing him made me freeze. Not because I missed him or that he’d died later or anything like that. The man was rather healthy considering his current pack-a-day habit that he wouldn’t kick until a health scare forced him to. No, what made me stop was that I was a child again. I had no clue how to be a child.

There were two paths forward that I could see. The first was to give it a shot and pretend to act my body’s age—whatever that was. The second was to give it up and explain that, through some quirk of fate, I’d returned to the past from like 30 years in the future. That—technically—I was older than Dad and maybe Mom too. Knowing how bright both of them were, the first option was not going to work. The second option just felt off somehow… And yet, I saw no other reasonable and self-consistent option.

Readying myself for whatever might come, I pulled out one of the chairs and climbed up onto it. Dad put his phone down and appraised me for a moment.

“’Mornin’ Little Man,” he said. “Did you sleep well?”

“Eh,” I replied, “coulda been better.”

“Want some breakfast?” he asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Why not. Probably for the best that I eat something.”

Dad stood up and then paused for a fraction of a second before shaking his head and muttering something to himself. He left went into the kitchen for a couple minutes and returned with a bowl of cereal. It was the same kind he’d been eating, but with a bit of sugar added to make it marginally palatable.

“You ok?” he asked once he’d returned to his seat.

“How old am I right now?” I wondered.

“Five. Are you sure you’re ok? You’re acting strangely.”

“I’m as ok as I can be after returning… 31? years into my past,” I said, doing the mental math.

“What?!” He uttered with a confused expression.

“Still not sure how it really happened,” I shrugged. “Figured trying to act my age would be harder than convincing you of the truth.”

“Huh,” he said.

We fell into silence for almost a minute while Dad’s brain tried to reconcile 5 year old me with the possibility that I was older than him mentally. I used the opportunity to shovel a couple bites into my mouth. The texture left a lot to be desired—it felt like trying to eat a beach with a milk ocean—but now that the pit in my stomach had calmed some, I discovered that I was ravenous.

“So let me get this straight,” he said, “you somehow were able to go back in time and you were, uh, 36 when this event happened?”

I nodded, swallowing the food in my mouth.

“Well, forgive me if I find that hard to believe.”

“I don’t believe it and I’m the one living it.”

“Can you prove it?”

“I can try,” I said with a quick pause to think. A few family secrets would do the trick. “I probably didn’t know your brother is a functioning alcoholic when I was five, or that your great-grandfather was heil-ing Hitler while his wife was half-Jewish. Oh, and despite what your father claims, there are no Native Americans in our family. It’s a nice story, though.”

“Huh,” he said, dumbstruck. Dad muttered to himself for a half-minute or so before he continued. “As far as I can remember, you shouldn’t know any of that. So, as much as it pains me to admit it, who you were yesterday and who you are today are vastly different. I’ll accept what you’ve said even if it makes absolutely no sense to me whatsoever.”

“You and me both,” I added.

“I’m… gonna go have a smoke,” he said.

I sat at the table waiting for Dad to get back. In the back of my head I wondered if I’d said something wrong or messed up somehow. I thought I had done my best to prove it to him.

The minutes ticked by but eventually he returned, reeking of cigarette smoke. He sat down and gave me a serious look.

“You get married, have kids?” he asked. “What’d you do for work? For fun? Don’t tell me if I died, I don’t want to know. I’m serious.”

I was taken aback by the barrage of questions and asked him to repeat them more slowly before answering them one by one. Then he moved on to the most important thing someone should ask a time traveler:

“Anything you can tell me about stocks or sports? Might was well see if we can make a little with foreknowledge.”

“Sorry to say that I didn’t pay attention to either until I was a teen,” I laughed.

I chose not to mention the System or the coming apocalypse. I knew he’d have questions—ones I didn’t have answers to yet. Once I knew what was up, I’d consider revisiting the conversation then if it made sense. Being able to confide in someone else would be a valuable way to ease my mind in the future instead of bottling everything up. Fifteen-ish years was a long time but it would go quickly enough. I wouldn’t have time to waste spiraling emotionally.’

“So, kid—um, what should I call you?” he asked.

“Eddy’s fine,” I answered. “Milton’s a god-awful name.”

“Please watch your language.”

“Sorry.”

“So, Eddy, what do you want to do?”

“Probably just fu—, uh, mess around in the back for a bit. I assume it’s the weekend otherwise I’d be in school, right?”

“It’s actually a Wednesday, but it’s spring break.”

“Nice. Oh, what’s the date?”

“The, um,” he began while pulling up his phone to check the screen. “It’s the 12th.”

“Of April?”

“Yeah.”

“Damn!” I cursed, realizing that it was, in fact, my birthday rather than New Year’s.

“Language?”

“Yeah, sorry. Not used to being five.”

“Understandable,” he nodded. “If you want to talk more about it, I’m here anytime.”

“Thanks. I’m heading out back.”

I dashed upstairs and put my socks on before running back down the stairs to put my shoes on. Then I walked into the kitchen and out the dutch door onto the back porch. The porch was barely big enough for two people to stand on. It was made of wood and covered in peeling green paint, with a set of stairs going down the ten-or-so feet to the back yard. The yard itself wasn’t too big, but there was a large grove of Japanese Knotweed—an invasive bamboo-like plant—past the far edge that went at least a quarter mile back to a river.

I climbed down the stairs and into the yard. While walking across the grass, I pulled up my status screen.

Name: Milton Edward Teller III aka Eddy

Exp: 18

Somehow, I’d gained another 16 experience since I’d last checked, and I still was clueless as to why. I really needed to unlock that help function. If living life gave experience, maybe being a kid and playing in the bamboo jungle would yield similar results. It’d also be nice if—

The action you are attempting requires unlocking a feature.

Feature: Notifications I

Unlock Personal Use: 10 Exp

Unlock For Universal Use: 10,000 Exp

I saw the cheap price of the feature and I weighed the utility of Notifications I over waiting to get the System Help function first so I wouldn’t be flailing around so much. On the one hand, Notifications I would help me gain experience faster by figuring out whatever was giving me those notifications I couldn’t see. On the other hand, the System Help function would give me a lot more information generally. Information that I would need in order to rectify my mistake and not accidentally make more.

I picked up a rock from the ground. It was rounded on one side and flatter on the other while having a generally oval shape. I assigned one option to each face of the rock and flipped it in the air. As the rock sailed upwards, I knew which path to pick.

Feature Unlocked: Notifications I

Current Exp: 8

This notification came with a corresponding chime consisting of the perfect set of frequencies to get my attention. That was going to get old quickly. I hoped there was a way to—

The action you are attempting requires unlocking a feature.

Feature: Notifications II

Unlock Personal Use: 50 Exp

Unlock For Universal Use: 50,000 Exp

“Of course,” I complained.

I shouldn’t have expected anything less at this point. When the System Help function cost 100 exp, of course the mute function wasn’t going to be free.

Stupid nickel-and-dime-ing System!

I took out my frustration by running and jumping over a fallen stalk of knotweed at the edge of the grove. Several chimes sounded with their corresponding screens popped up in quick succession. I stopped and read them immediately.

Milestone: Ran 1 step

Exp Gained: 1

Milestone: Ran 10 steps

Exp Gained: 2

Milestone: Jumped 1 time

Exp Gained: 1

So that’s how I’ve been getting experience! I wonder what the other ones were for? Would have been nice to have these earlier…Explains what I saw under ‘Universal Use’ earlier. It’d be nice if the messages would—

The action you are attempting requires unlocking a feature.

Feature: Notifications II

Unlock Personal Use: 50 Exp

Unlock For Universal Use: 50,000 Exp

Figures.

In order to combine the notifications, I would need the same feature that would allow me to mute the sound. At least it was the same purchase and not ‘Notifications III’ or something stupid like that. I rolled my eyes and stepped farther into the knotweed forest.