The Precognition Paradox.

Chapter 1

This is my story. It’s weird, I know. It’s definitely not your everyday kinda life. My name is Troy Kit Cheng, 3. I’m 19. I live in New York, downtown Manhattan. I must be the youngest entrepreneur in Silicon alley. Don’t get me wrong, Silicon Alley is a variant from Silicon Valley. From my windows, I have a good view of Hudson River. It’s a great view. I own the entire building and 95% of the people working on this building work for me. How I come to have all these? That’s your question. Simple, I had an idea a few months ago and 9 months down the road, here I am. Whew! Life is definitely getting more and more interesting. At first, people were sceptical but Sierra Technologies became an overnight success, as the saying goes. The year is 2048 and the world has become a technology-based global village. There are all kinds of gadgets purported to make our lives simpler. Well, my idea was simple. I simply came out with a technology that allowed our gadgets communicate with each other. I called it the greenhat voiceway. It was a separate network that when configured could tune in to all kinds of devices within range. So, for the first time, machines could communicate with each other based on whatever input had been fed into them. It cut across all platforms, from very complex devices such as a programmed rocket launcher to a simple everyday appliance like your icebox. The building also houses VirtuaWeb which I own 85% of it. Three months ago, Sierra Technologies moved from its offices in Michigan to this building which was owned by Caesar Atkinson, former CEO of VirtuaWeb. Currently, it is a public company which I acquired for twenty-five dollars a share for a total of six hundred and fifty million dollars. Yesterday, it closed at forty-two a share and is currently worth about one point two billion dollars. I have a gift. I can gather information about anything. I just have to think about something and I know all about it. It’s kinda hard to explain. Back at college, I didn’t have to study much. I just had to think and focus on the topic and I would somehow have all the information about it. I never touched any book. It’s like the information was downloaded from some source but from where? Beats even me. I was top of my class after that. My SAT test scores was a record. I came from Zero to Hero. Yay!

My parents were freaked out, so were my teachers and friends. I had to undergo all kinds of tests. Dr. Munroe, Stanford Research Institute said it was a form of ESP. Short for Extrasensory perception. When I thought about it, I found it was actually called remote viewing. How I come to have this gift, I have no idea. Two years ago, 28 May 2028, to be exact, I had been diagnosed with an unusual aneurysm. It was a cerebral aneurysm, but it was located in the posterior cerebral artery, which is rare. I was admitted in UCLA medical centre but was later moved to UMHS, University of Michigan Health System. The surgery was a success and after a few weeks of recovery, I found out that I could do more with my mind. I remember the night I was discharged from the hospital quite vividly. My family and I were at the table for dinner. My Uncle Shing and his wife and two kids were there too. They’d come all the way from Virginia to be with my family. Ms. Winnie Tattaglia was also there. She is mom’s closest friend. It was quite a quiet dinner considering they were there to welcome me home. Halfway into the meal, dad opened a Dom Perignon 98 and poured it into glasses for all the adults. Uncle Shing had thrown his head back and downed ¾’s of his drink in one single gulp and had exclaimed “Cheng, you always know the best!” in mandarin.

“I know you only demand the best”. That was Dad, smiling and nodding his head too. I looked at the almost empty bottle and my mind was filled with so much information about the wine. I figured I had read it in a book or somewhere on the internet. Uncle Shing takes another gulp “Dom Perignon! One of the world’s finest! I could indulge myself in this non-stop. Off the record, we all knew about Uncle Shing and his over-indulgence in alcohol. He was what I would call a semi-drunk. He always claimed to be a wine-connoisseur, which quite frankly didn’t surprise anyone. His first love was the bottle. After that came his Canadian-born wife, Tammy and their two nice kids.