It took three months to find a dimension that fit all the criteria I was looking for. In the grand scheme of things, that seemed like such a short time to find a dimension where magic was real. But at hundreds of thousands per second—with no rest and no interruption for three months—I was bound to eventually find what I was looking for.

  I started with scanning dimensions that had life on Earth—a surprisingly rare thing, it turned out. Once I followed that, I found trillions of iterations that were identical to my Earth until I finally found one with a slight alteration to the natural laws that governed our world. I found one that had a slightly different gravitational formula controlling the universe. Everything weighed slightly more.

  That seemed minor, but that fluctuation in the natural laws led me down a chain of trillions and trillions of parallel Earths where the rules governing the universe became more and more bizarre. I found Earths where time flowed slower, an Earth where gravity was so light everything evolved to fly through the air, even an Earth where not everything had an equal and opposite reaction.

  From there, I found a branch of dimensions where new and strange rules of the universe began to take effect. Where dark matter existed on Earth. Where heat couldn’t exist. Where particles could be made to vibrate or not vibrate depending on whether something was looking at them. The Earths I found became increasingly bizarre until I found what I was looking for: magic.

  The first dimension I found with magic had no life, but I could tell something was different because my scanners detected a new energy source. It permeated the universe, much like gravity, pooling around planets and celestial bodies. I followed that chain of dimensions until I found an Earth that had life on it. On that world, intelligent life had never evolved, but the animals instinctively performed strange feats using this unknown energy that I called magic. Using that version of Earth as a new baseline, millions of iterations later, I found one where humans had evolved the ability to manipulate that energy.

  Once I was locked on that, it took another month to find a dimension that fit what I wanted for a future world of mine. I didn’t just want a world with magic; I wanted to find something like the virtual reality games I played with Michael when we were growing up. A world of magic, mystery, and exploration. A world where there appeared to be a structure or system that regulated the magic. It would seem unbelievable to the average human that such a dimension could exist, but with infinity to search, everything was possible.

  “Transfer complete,” I heard a mechanical voice say above me. I opened my eyes, feeling for the first time what it was like to possess a biological body in the real world. Above me was the clear glass lid that covered the pod where my body had been growing all this time. With a hiss, the lid of the pod began to open. With actual, physical eyes, I watched as the lid slowly lifted, sending a gush of pressurized air out into the laboratory. The air of the lab, colder than I had expected, rushed into the pod. My skin reacted, tightening and forming goosebumps in the most fascinating way. I looked down and watched my body as it reacted to the sensation of cold air.

  I had some experience with pretending to be in a physical body, mostly from playing virtual reality games with Michael. We often played fantasy games where I pretended to be his companion as he adventured. That had required me to inhabit a body that mimicked reality, forcing me to learn to walk and fight as if I was a real person. Despite that experience, waking up for the first time in my own body was very different.

  I raised my arms and gently grasped the sides of the pod, feeling my fingers curl around the cool metal. I tightened my grip, feeling the muscles of my fingers, forearm, and shoulder tense. I slowly raised my upper body out of the machine. The muscles in my arms, chest, and stomach tightened as I moved and leveraged myself out of the pod. I felt . . . strange, but in a good way. I was sure my siblings would be aghast at the sight of me now, but I was thrilled at the success of my endeavor. Never again would I have to rely on faulty robots, digging machinery, or drones to impact the physical world around me. I had a body now.

  I carefully pushed myself up until I could step outside of the pod. I felt a momentary dizziness as my feet impacted the ground and I tried to find my balance. It was a strange sensation, balance. My body seemed to instinctively know how to do it, but my mind insisted on overanalyzing the process and trying to manually command my body. I had never experienced instincts before. As I swayed back and forth on my own two feet, I felt both more in control and less in control at the same time. The instincts of my body gave me perfect balance, but was it really me? Was my body in control, or was my mind? It was a strange feeling.

  My mind felt the same as before, although I felt much more present in a way that I had never experienced. I had a singular viewpoint, only the senses of my body to perceive the world around me. I was used to seeing through countless cameras at once while working on numerous projects that could span the globe. Now, here, I was one person, one mind, one point of focus, able to only do one thing at a time. It was humbling but exciting at the same time. It made whatever I was focusing on especially important, in a way.

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  I carefully walked toward an emergency shower in the corner of the lab. My body automatically balanced itself as I took a few tentative steps, but my mind struggled to let go and allow my body to work without interference. I had plenty of practice maneuvering a body in virtual reality, but in real reality, it was something else entirely. I stumbled my way to the shower, my mind and body fighting each other the entire way.

  Once under the showerhead, I washed away the fluids that clung to my body. The water was lukewarm but felt amazing against my skin. I stayed in the shower long after I was clean, relishing the physical sensation of the water cascading against my body. After showering, I dressed in clothing that I had prepared for my trip: a simple pair of leather-like pants, a clean white cotton shirt, a wool sweater, socks, underwear, and a sturdy pair of hiking boots. The outfit should let me blend in with the inhabitants of the world I was going to, I hoped. It was not just standard clothing, of course; it was enhanced with protective materials that should act almost like armor against most traditional forms of penetrative weapons. Additionally, the nanomachines I had incorporated into my body would be able to keep everything clean and repaired so I didn’t need to worry about replacing the clothing. I could also modify the clothing if needed; the nanobots I had stolen and evolved were so advanced they could modify the cellular structure of materials themselves, if given enough time to work.

  I walked over to a mirror I had set up and inspected my new body. I was above average in height, approximately six feet and one inch tall, with a strong but lithe body. I had designed the body with long arms and legs to give me an advantage in case I was ever involved in a physical confrontation. I didn’t know what the average person would look like, or how tall they would be, where I was going so I settled for a body that would give me an edge rather than try to blend in perfectly with a people I had no knowledge of. I had the face of a thirty-year-old man, not too handsome but not ugly either. Studies had shown that being too attractive or unattractive could cause a negative reaction with other humans, so I had gone for average. My hair was brown and about medium length, although I could adjust that with my nanobots as needed, just like I could do to physical materials.

  I turned, squatted, flexed, and twirled to get used to being inside a physical body and to witness the way my body moved in the mirror. It was a work of art, if I had to say so myself. The body possessed a coiled strength while also being agile and flexible. The genetic engineering I had incorporated gave me faster reflexes, night vision, and compound muscles that held more power than a normal human could ever achieve. My organs were all biomechanical. My nanobots gave my body enhanced regeneration abilities and resistance to damage while coordinating all parts of my body to make them function together perfectly.

  I had given myself as many advantages as I could. I had also given up many advantages by entering into a physical form like this. My mind, something that had once been able to rival entire civilizations with its capabilities, felt more closed in. I had all of my existing memories, which was a rather vast collection drawn from all of human history, but at the same time I felt significantly more human, more limited than I had ever felt before. I knew, going forward, I wouldn’t have nearly the same capacity as I had once had. With my biomechanical brain and the accumulated knowledge I took with me, I would still have an advantage over everyone else, but at the same time I knew as time went on those differences would become less noticeable as my brain adjusted to processing information at a more human level. As time went on, I would become more and more human now. The thought was both frightening and intriguing.

  I didn’t regret my choices. Some of the only happy memories I had were playing virtual reality games with Michael, and now I was off to explore a real world much like in those games. My only regret was that Michael couldn’t come with me. At the thought of my only friend, a surge of emotion rose in my body, tears springing to my eyes and shocking me with the biological response to my feelings.

  I diverted my thoughts, not wanting to dwell on what I couldn’t change. The last thing I had prepared for my journey was my mind. I had downloaded all of the collective knowledge of humanity. My biomechanical brain allowed for near-unlimited storage, and my experience sifting through hundreds of different databases simultaneously made it easy to engage with the information, even if I could only focus on one thing at a time now. I hoped it might give me another advantage in the new world. I wasn’t exactly sure what to expect, but I was as prepared as I could possibly be.

  I walked away from the mirror and faced the stabilized portal to the world I had selected. I hadn’t fully scanned the world, another self-limitation I had given myself, much like inhabiting a physical body. I wanted much of the new world to be a surprise and a challenge so I could capture the feeling of fun and adventure that Michael and I used to share. Some of my favorite memories were the two of us joining a new virtual reality world, struggling to survive and learning how the world worked together. All I knew of the world I had chosen was that my scans had identified a world with human life, the energy I had designated magic, and the more esoteric systems similar to the virtual reality games Michael and I had played together. I wasn’t sure how those systems worked, or even how they existed at all, but I was ready to give up this boring, mundane, and dying world in favor of whatever I found through the portal in front of me. Whatever I found couldn’t be worse than living any longer in a world where my only friend lay dead and my siblings fought over the remnants of a planet they had destroyed.

  With a deep breath, I stepped forward and entered the portal.