Mitigating The Inevitable (eBook)

A.D. Hugo Davies (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2025 | 1. Auflage
130 Seiten
Publishdrive (Verlag)
978-0-00-096266-9 (ISBN)

Infos

Miles Corbin exists in the periphery, a master of the meticulously crafted inconspicuous life at a mundane car rental agency. He safeguards a profound secret: he can see the future, not as vague premonitions, but as precise, undeniable images of what is to come. He considers this power a burden, using it only to perform quiet, unacknowledged interventions to steer strangers away from senseless suffering. His carefully constructed world is upended by Olivia Thorne, a radiant customer whose presence eclipses his gift, leaving him blind to the future and seeing only her. When a terrifying vision reveals Olivia is in mortal danger, Miles must make a choice: remain a ghost in the machine of destiny or shatter his lifelong anonymity to save the one connection that has made him feel alive.

Textauszug

Chapter 1: The Oracle of Wheels & Deals

Miles Corbin existed in the periphery, a master of the meticulously crafted inconspicuous. His life was a testament to the deliberate art of fading into the background, a series of precise, economical movements designed to deflect any stray glance. He occupied his small corner of the universe with the quiet intensity of a man safeguarding an immense secret, his presence a carefully constructed void within the mundane architecture of "Wheels & Deals."

 

The rental car agency was a symphony of the unremarkable: a perpetual low hum of cheap air conditioning, the faintly metallic tang of stale coffee, exhaust fumes clinging to the air, and the sharp chemical scent of cleaning supplies. The fluorescent lights above, unblinking and harsh, cast an anemic, sickly yellow glow that leached the color from everything it touched, including, it often seemed, Miles himself, blending him seamlessly into the bland beige walls.

 

To the casual observer, Miles was simply "the quiet guy," a benign, forgettable fixture, as integral and unnoticed as the worn linoleum tiles beneath their feet.

 

Yet, beneath this carefully constructed veneer of normalcy, Miles harbored a profound secret, a deviation from the ordinary so immense it would, if revealed, shatter every preconceived notion about him.

 

He saw the future.

 

Not the vague premonitions of fortune tellers, nor the misty visions of prophets, and certainly not the dry probabilities of statisticians.

Miles experienced specific, undeniable certainties, unfolding with startling clarity in his mind's eye, like hyper-realistic cinema projected directly onto his consciousness.

 

This extraordinary ability was not a flamboyant, cinematic power, devoid of effort or consequence. There were no flashing lights, no dramatic pronouncements, no surges of energy that left him drained. It was a subtle, persistent hum beneath the surface of his awareness, a low-frequency vibration that offered fleeting, yet incredibly detailed, glimpses of what was irrevocably destined to come.

 

He’d spent years, painstakingly, meticulously, learning to harness it, to fine-tune his perception, and most importantly, to nudge people away from impending catastrophe without ever revealing his hand. He called it "mitigating the inevitable."

 

Consider, for instance, the effervescent young woman who had bounced into the agency just the previous week.

 

Her eyes had sparkled with the untamed promise of wide-open spaces, eager to rent a rugged SUV for an adventurous solo desert road trip.

 

Miles, without a flicker of hesitation, had offered an unsolicited suggestion for full coverage, his voice a low, unassuming murmur.

 

"It's just… you never know with those desert roads," he'd begun, feigning a thoughtful frown, "And actually, I just heard… well, I think it was on the news, a brief mention of a rockslide advisory out east, near the canyon roads. Better safe than sorry, right?"

In reality, he’d already witnessed her future with chilling precision: the sickening crack spreading like a spiderweb across her windshield as a loose boulder tumbled from a ridge, the horrifying crunch of metal against jagged rock as she swerved, the searing pain of a broken arm, her muffled screams echoing in the desolate silence of the desert.

 

His timely intervention, delivered with a polite, almost diffident smile, had subtly steered her to a parallel future where the potentially life-altering incident became just that—a minor scrape, covered by insurance, a story to recount over coffee, not a trauma to endure.

 

He wasn't a hero in the conventional sense, no capes or dramatic rescues. He was a silent guardian, a meticulous weaver of altered destinies, gently bending the threads of fate, softening the blows for unsuspecting strangers.

 

He held an inherent, almost visceral, aversion to senseless suffering, a deep-seated empathy that fueled his quiet, unacknowledged interventions. It gnawed at him, a quiet, constant ache, and his gift, though often draining, was his only solace.

 

His own life was a meticulously crafted testament to his controlled and disciplined use of the gift.

 

He’d acquired shares in a fledgling tech company weeks before an unforeseen industry surge saw its value skyrocket, then liquidated his entire portfolio with pinpoint precision days before a devastating market crash that wiped out countless investors, leaving them bewildered and bankrupt.

 

He’d secured his modest, yet comfortable, bungalow—a quiet, unassuming structure on a tree-lined street—at an astonishingly low price, armed with the exact knowledge of the precise moment the housing market would dip to its lowest point, a fleeting window of opportunity only he could perceive.

 

His existence was one of quiet comfort, meticulously designed to avoid drawing even the slightest flicker of attention to his extraordinary nature.

 

He drove a sensible, almost forgettable, pewter-grey sedan. He frequented the local library with unwavering regularity, a creature of habit, always returning his books precisely on time.

 

He cultivated a persona of profound, almost aggressively cultivated, normalcy, a chameleon blending seamlessly into the drab wallpaper of everyday life, a man utterly devoid of anything remarkable. He was the kind of person you’d forget five minutes after meeting, and that was exactly how he preferred it.

 

Then, on a seemingly ordinary Tuesday afternoon, a day as unremarkable as countless others at Wheels & Deals, the beige, predictable world Miles had so carefully constructed exploded into a vibrant, dazzling spectrum of color.

 

She walked in.

 

The automatic doors hissed open, and it was as if the harsh fluorescent lights above, which had always cast their anemic glow uniformly, now dimmed their artificial brilliance, focusing all their intensity, all their searing luminescence, solely on her.

 

The dusty air of the office seemed to shimmer around her. Her laughter, a light, melodic sound, even muffled by the pervasive office buzz—the distant clack of keyboards, the low drone of the ancient copier, the murmured phone calls—resonated with the pure, unadulterated warmth of sunshine after a long, grey winter. Her eyes were the color of a boundless summer sky, clear and vast, holding a depth that seemed to invite exploration, promising forgotten adventures.

 

Her very presence filled the cramped, utilitarian space with an effortless grace, a radiant energy that transcended the stale air and cheap decor, and utterly stole Miles’s breath, leaving him momentarily suspended, his carefully constructed world tilting wildly on its axis. He didn't see her future, not a single flickering image. He saw only her. Her name, he would soon discover, was Olivia Thorne, and she was simply asking for a compact car.

 

Miles, a man typically characterized by his unflappable composure, his almost robotic efficiency when dealing with customers, felt his meticulously practiced professionalism unravel with alarming speed. It wasn't a slow fraying; it was a sudden, violent tearing. He cleared his throat, but the sound was thin, reedy. He felt a sudden, inexplicable heat creeping up his neck.

 

His hands, usually steady and precise as he inputted data, now fumbled clumsily with the pre-printed rental agreement, the cheap plastic pen slipping between his suddenly numb fingers and clattering with an embarrassingly loud clack onto the chipped laminate desk.

He, the man who saw tomorrow with absolute, unyielding clarity, was now utterly blind to anything beyond the radiant woman who stood before him, her presence eclipsing all else, rendering his gift momentarily useless, irrelevant.

 

He could see no future, only her. His internal monologue, usually so ordered and logical, had devolved into a frantic, incoherent whisper: Idiot. Idiot. Pick up the pen. Don't stare. For god's sake, don't stare.

 

He stammered, his voice a half-choked whisper, every word feeling monumentally significant, loaded with an unarticulated meaning he couldn't grasp.

"Um… hi there," Miles began, his voice cracking on the "hi." He mentally winced. Help you? She's standing at the rental counter, Miles. What else would she want?

Olivia, seemingly oblivious to his sudden internal meltdown, offered a polite, gentle smile. "Yes, hi. I'm Olivia Thorne. I called earlier about picking up a compact."

 

"Right. Right, a compact." Miles nodded too vigorously. He found himself staring at her eyes, then quickly darted his gaze to the computer screen, then to the wall behind her, anywhere but her face. "Okay, so… uh… Thorne, T-H-O-R-N-E?" He knew it was Thorne; he’d seen the name on the reservation system moments before she walked in, but he needed to buy time, to appear normal.

 

"That's right," she confirmed, a hint of amusement in her voice, which only made him feel more flustered.

 

He began typing, his fingers clumsy on the keyboard. "And… uh… driver's license, please?" His voice was barely above a whisper.

She handed it over, her fingers brushing his. A tiny spark, an unexpected jolt, shot through him. He pulled his hand back as if burned....

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 20.6.2025
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Fantasy / Science Fiction ► Fantasy
• ISBN-10: 0-00-096266-X / 000096266X
• ISBN-13: 978-0-00-096266-9 / 9780000962669