The well-behaved cat t Jenkins’s baseless accusation with a soft ow, its thoughts an utter mystery.
Perhaps because he'd gotten ho so late the night before, Jenkins found himself fighting off a wave of drowsiness as he sat on a bench in the gallery corridor. He struggled to keep his eyes open, but the exhaustion was overwhelming. The mont his eyelids fluttered shut, he was asleep, only to be jolted awake seconds later by the noisy surroundings.
He wearily lifted his head. A bustling crowd milled past him. His gaze fell upon the painting on the opposite wall, but it was no longer the cat pouncing on a butterfly. In its place hung a self-portrait of a middle-aged man in a ridiculous hat.
Confused by how the painting could have been changed so quickly, he reached for his cat, only to find that Chocolate was gone. Jenkins shot to his feet, a sudden awareness dawning on him that sothing about his surroundings was wrong.
It was still the sa gallery, but the walls had been repainted, and the gas lamps mounted on them were far more intricate. Exquisite bronze chanical structures hung beneath the lights, a delicate network of gears and bearings that connected to tiny tal components embedded within the walls.
The bench he was sitting on was no longer wood but tal, though it was fitted with a soft cushion. The people around him were dressed normally enough, but their attire seed more suited for sumr, even though it was only early spring.
"Excuse , have you seen my cat?"
He stopped a passing gentleman, hoping to get so answers.
"Sorry, I just arrived myself. This exhibition for the tenth anniversary of Mr. Grant's death is absolutely packed. Those greedy rchants must have sold a fortune in tickets... Wait a minute. You look familiar."
Jenkins was stunned by the phrase "tenth anniversary of Mr. Grant's death." He hastily excused himself from the puzzled gentleman and let the crowd carry him deeper into the gallery. The walls were now adorned with those familiar, cartoonish oil paintings. A few of the pieces further inside had plaques beneath them, listing the lender and the most recent auction price.
"Thirty thousand pounds?"
Jenkins was floored, first by the price, and then by the staggering realization that he might be in the future.
He stopped another person and asked for the date, learning that it was the year 1878 of the Universal Calendar.
"Tenth anniversary of his death... The present, as I know it, is 1866. If this really is the future, that ans Mr. Grant will die just two years after our eting..."
He scanned his surroundings with his supernatural sight, but detected no suspicious auras. Swept along by the throng, he was carried out of the gallery and onto the street, which was just as packed. The buildings on either side looked largely the sa, but the steam pipes snaking up their walls had been replaced by constructs of intricate, interlocking gears, possessing a strange chanical beauty. A web of tallic conduits crisscrossed the sky, and people carried brass-colored devices Jenkins had never seen before.
A police officer, equipped with a miniaturized steam furnace on his back and a steam rifle, eyed the bewildered Jenkins at the gallery entrance with suspicion. The dense crowd, however, prevented him from crossing the street to investigate. The officer reached for an iron box affixed to a nearby lamppost, just below the inscription of a Sage's proverb. After keying in a code, a small door popped open, and he retrieved a long, thin tal device resembling an abacus, its buttons clicking as he tapped them.
Jenkins, lost in his daze, failed to notice the officer's attention. He only registered a vast shadow falling over him and a large portion of the street. Looking up, he was stunned to see a colossal steam-powered airship gliding through the sky above the city, trailing a long red banner:
[Maxius Steam Furnaces: Your Premier Choice!]
"Am I losing my mind?"
Jenkins asked himself amidst the clamor of the street, and then a famous phenonon ca to mind: the Series B Extraordinary event B-07-1-6233, the "Uncertain Future."
It was a type of Series B event that exclusively affected Enchanters. It would target a single individual, causing them to shuttle frequently between the present and a possible future over a short period.
The future witnessed by an Enchanter undergoing event B-07-1-6233 wasn't a fixed destiny, but rely one of many possibilities.
According to the teachings of the great "Hermit of Destiny," any observation of the future is uncertain until the future itself arrives. This doctrine served as a warning to diviners against placing too much faith in prophecy, and it also highlighted the unreliable nature of B-07-1-6233.
However, extensive records showed that so elents of the future foreseen through B-07-1-6233 were guaranteed to co to pass. For instance, the very scene Jenkins was witnessing could an that in twelve years, Nolan would be a ruin, and these crowds were rely tourists wandering through the rubble, paying homage to the last vestiges of a great city.
The event held value, but it was impossible to know which parts of the vision were true. This ant that for any Enchanter caught in its grip, the safest course of action was to distrust everything they saw. It was the only way to avoid being misled by the future and toyed with by fate.
Jenkins stared, wide-eyed, at the scene before him. He already felt like he didn't belong in this world; now, it seed he didn't belong in this era either.
"Co to think of it," he wondered, "will I be able to see this era's version of myself?"
The thought suddenly struck him, and he was eager to head toward his ho on St. George Street. But before he could even begin to push through the festive crowd, the wave of drowsiness washed over him again.
He had no ti to fight it. His eyelids fell shut of their own accord, and his consciousness faded once more into a peaceful slumber.
"ow~"
Chocolate's cry roused his numb mind. The sharp sting of his cat's claws scratching the back of his hand shocked his consciousness into full clarity.
He looked up. The painting of the cat was still on the opposite wall. Clearly, Jenkins was back.
He couldn't help but press a hand to his forehead, letting out a long sigh. A dull ache throbbed in the left side of his head—a migraine, one of the known side effects of observing the future through B-07-1-6233.
Typically, an Enchanter who experienced the B-07-1-6233 event would "travel to the future" several tis in succession, at intervals of roughly five minutes. The record was ten such jumps, with a minimum of three. This ant Jenkins would likely have to endure several more visions of the future.
"Should I report this to the Church?"
Jenkins mulled it over, deciding to wait and see what else the future visions revealed. If they were all as peaceful as the one he'd just seen, with no sensitive or unknown elents, there would be no harm in reporting it. But if the visions touched upon his own secrets, it would be best to let this matter, like so many others, remain buried deep within him.
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