Futures : A hypertext short story

3B: Breakthrough

I'll leave this out, Darnby thought, looking down at the diagram of his psionic amplifier. I'll have a go at it in a while.
   He was half hoping to produce out of thin air enough money to buy himself an extra pint when he went out to his local pub. This was sole concession to the urge for riotous living shelling out a small fortune on a Friday night for a pint of liquid that was mainly good old water brightened with a little over-taxed alcohol.
   He returned home at closing time feeling as skint as ever. He had made a late start to his drinking, and he had bought a pint and a half of bitter out of his own money. There was a half-way decent film on BBC 2 as that channel's late-night rubbish offering. It finished at half-past twelve, just as Michael Darnby's eyelids were starting to droop at the end of a long day. He switched off the television at the wall socket; taking his routine fire-prevention measures. He had never heard of a plugged-in television actually starting a fire, but there was no point in taking unnecessary chances.
   You'd better do your stuff, mate, he told the psionic amplifier on the dining table. Before I have to spend that fiver on the Comparator Gate. Perhaps I'll have more luck in the morning after a night's sleep.
   He switched the light off and plodded up the stairs, putting all doubts aside. He felt that it was important to maintain an unshakable belief in the amplifier's powers if he were to stand any chance of success with it.
   Keep the faith, he told himself. Maintain an unsupported belief in the unreasonable. That's the basis for things like religions, faith-healing and Voodoo assassinations. Anything that you believe is possible can actually happen - if you believe strongly enough and you're a good enough liar to yourself.
   He wriggled into a comfortable position in bed, thinking about the amplifier and wondering whether he could operate it by remote control. Perhaps he could connect himself to the Input Gate with immaterial beams of pure thought. Trying to imagine how many millions of pounds had been lost over the years, and how he would spend them if he could trawl them up, he drifted off to sleep.
   He woke up, unassisted by artificial aids, at eight o'clock the following morning. A hollow gurgling in his digestive system hurried him through his ablutions and sent him leaping down the stairs two at a time in search of breakfast. He crossed the gloomy living room, drew the curtains with their abstract printed design, looked unenthusiastically out at a grey day and then reached for the kitchen doorknob.
   His hand stopped in mid-air, two inches short of the doorknob. The spectacle on the dining table turned his head and drew his eyes like a magnet. The incredible had happened...

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