Fates Abound Issue 1: Experiment

A quantum-noir for readers of Philip K. Dick, William Gibson, and Black Science. Near-future New York. The Silos District. A city of digital addicts, corporate surveillance, and cops who look the other way. Ryan Altair is a freelance hacker, bipolar, and out of reasons to keep going. His meds turn him into someone he doesn't recognise. His relationships keep ending. The immersive feeds he sinks into every night are starting to feel thin. Then, at the exact moment he tries to kill himself, the city's power grid fails. He survives by accident. His best friend Chand, a Princeton quantum physicist, has a theory. In a branching multiverse, every version of Ryan that died tonight is dead. He is the version that didn't. And if that's true, it might be possible to choose which version of himself survives next time. The idea takes hold. Ryan builds a device. He tests it on the lottery.