Chapter 10: The iPhone Launch
POV: Stuart
The line outside the Apple store stretched around three city blocks, filled with people clutching cash and credit cards like pilgrims bearing offerings to a technological deity. I watched the chaos from across the street, sipping coffee and trying to process the surreal experience of watching my Memory power's predictions manifest in perfect real-time detail.
Six months ago, when I'd casually mentioned that Apple's upcoming phone would "change everything," the gang had responded with the kind of polite skepticism usually reserved for claims about UFO sightings. Leonard had pointed out that smartphones already existed. Sheldon had calculated that the $600 price point exceeded rational consumer behavior models. Howard had joked about Steve Jobs' "reality distortion field," and Raj had wondered aloud why anyone would want to browse the internet on a three-inch screen.
Today, the iPhone officially launched, and those same people who had mocked my prediction were now part of the crowd desperately trying to get their hands on one.
My phone buzzed with a text from Leonard: "Okay, you win. This is insane. How did you know?"
The answer, of course, was that I'd lived through this moment before in a different timeline, watched it unfold on television and in news coverage for years afterward. The iPhone would reshape not just the smartphone market, but entire industries. Social media, mobile gaming, app development, digital photography—everything would change because of the device people were fighting to buy today.
But I couldn't explain that without revealing the impossible truth of my situation. Instead, I'd have to maintain the fiction that my accuracy came from superior market research and lucky intuition.
"At least this time I was smart enough to put my money where my mouth was," I thought, checking my brokerage app and feeling a familiar mix of satisfaction and guilt.
When I'd first mentioned Apple's "revolutionary phone" six months ago, I'd backed up my confidence with action. Borrowing against my Bitcoin holdings and the shop's improving cash flow, I'd purchased Apple stock at $85 per share. This morning, it had opened at $122 and was climbing steadily as news of the iPhone's successful launch spread.
My portfolio had gained over $40,000 in a single day.
The money was enough to completely transform my life, but it also represented another step away from the struggling artist Stuart had been and toward something I wasn't entirely sure I understood. Every financial success made my impossible knowledge more visible, my statistical anomalies more difficult to explain away.
I walked back to the shop, planning to spend the afternoon cataloging new inventory and trying to appear normal despite the supernatural windfall I'd just experienced. Instead, I found the entire gang waiting for me, their faces wearing expressions that ranged from amazed to suspicious.
"Stuart," Leonard said without preamble, "we need to talk."
"About what?"
"About your apparently prophetic relationship with consumer technology trends," Sheldon replied, consulting what appeared to be a detailed flowchart. "Your Apple prediction was accurate to a degree that suggests either unprecedented market analysis capabilities or—"
"Or you're some kind of tech industry insider," Howard interrupted. "Which would be awesome, by the way. Do you know when they're going to announce the next iPhone?"
"There's going to be a new one every year for the next decade," I thought, "plus iPads, Apple Watches, and a dozen other products that will make Apple the most valuable company in history."
"I just read the trade publications," I said with a shrug that I hoped looked casual. "Steve Jobs telegraphs his moves pretty clearly if you know how to interpret his public statements."
Penny looked up from browsing my graphic novel section. "Stuart, can I ask you something? And I want you to be honest."
"Sure."
"Are you rich now?"
The directness of the question caught me off guard. "What?"
"I mean, you've been making all these incredible investments. Bitcoin, Apple stock, probably other stuff you haven't mentioned. Plus the shop's doing really well. Are you actually wealthy now, or are you still the struggling comic book store owner you were six months ago?"
The question forced me to confront something I'd been avoiding thinking about directly. Between Bitcoin gains, Apple stock profits, and the shop's dramatically improved revenue, my net worth had increased by something approaching 500% since awakening in Stuart's life. I was no longer struggling to make rent—I was actively choosing how much success to reveal without arousing too much suspicion.
"I'm doing... better than I was," I admitted carefully.
"Better enough to afford a new apartment?" Leonard asked. "Because I noticed you've been looking at rental listings in nicer neighborhoods."
Actually, I've been looking at purchasing options, I thought, including the penthouse in this building that just came on the market.
"Maybe," I said. "Why?"
"Because," Sheldon said, "your lifestyle improvements correspond directly with your investment successes, suggesting a correlation between your market predictions and your personal financial planning that exceeds normal risk management protocols."
Raj pulled out his phone and showed me a message: "He's asking if you've been blessed by Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and prosperity."
"Raj thinks you're divinely favored," Howard translated. "I think you've got inside information. Leonard thinks you're just really good at pattern recognition. Sheldon thinks you're either a genius or a time traveler."
"Uncomfortably close to the truth there, Sheldon."
"What do you think, Penny?" I asked, deflecting attention from my own situation.
Penny set down the graphic novel she'd been flipping through and studied my face with those perceptive eyes that always seemed to see more than they should. "I think you're different than you were six months ago. Not just financially—everything about you has changed. You stand straighter, you make eye contact, you seem... I don't know, more solid somehow. Like you figured something out about yourself."
"I figured out that I'm not actually Stuart Bloom, I'm someone else wearing his life like a costume. But yes, that definitely changes your perspective on things."
"Success builds on itself," I said, which was true even if it didn't explain the supernatural mechanisms involved. "When you stop worrying about basic survival, you can focus on bigger things. When you make good decisions and they pay off, you gain confidence to make more good decisions."
It was a reasonable explanation that happened to align with how my Attractiveness power actually worked—each genuine success created measurable improvements in confidence, social presence, and physical appeal that made subsequent successes more likely.
"Speaking of bigger things," I said, changing the subject before anyone could probe deeper into my transformation, "how are you guys handling the writers' strike? Still think I was crazy for predicting it?"
The conversation shifted to television and entertainment, but I could feel Leonard watching me with the analytical intensity that made him such a good experimental physicist. His brain was collecting data points, building models, trying to understand the pattern of impossibilities that surrounded my recent success.
POV Shift: Leonard
Something was wrong with Stuart Bloom, and Leonard couldn't figure out what it was.
Wrong wasn't the right word, actually. Something was different about Stuart—dramatically, impossibly different—in ways that violated Leonard's understanding of how people changed over time.
Six months ago, Stuart had been a struggling comic shop owner on the verge of bankruptcy. Depressed, socially awkward, mumbling through conversations while avoiding eye contact. He'd dressed in ill-fitting clothes, carried himself with the defeated posture of someone who expected failure, and generally seemed like a man whose dreams had been gradually eroded by reality.
Today's Stuart was barely recognizable as the same person.
It wasn't just the money, though the financial transformation was certainly dramatic. Leonard had done rough calculations based on Stuart's investment timing and the public performance of his stock picks. Assuming he'd put significant money behind his predictions—which his lifestyle improvements suggested he had—Stuart was now worth somewhere in the low seven figures.
But the physical changes were even more striking. Stuart's posture had improved so dramatically that he appeared to have gained height. His facial features seemed more defined, his skin clearer, his overall presence more commanding. Even his voice had changed, becoming deeper and more confident.
"People don't just transform like that," Leonard thought, watching Stuart explain the difference between Marvel and DC storytelling philosophies to a customer. "Especially not in six months. Even dramatic life changes take time to manifest physically."
Yet here was Stuart, looking like someone had taken the old version and upgraded him in every measurable category. More confident, more attractive, more charismatic, more financially successful. It was like watching a character from a video game level up in real-time.
The predictions were the most troubling part. Stuart's accuracy rate on market trends, cultural phenomena, and industry developments was literally impossible. Leonard had run the probability calculations multiple times, and the numbers didn't make sense unless Stuart had access to information that shouldn't exist.
Bitcoin timing: 99th percentile accuracy. Walking Dead speculation: Perfect prediction of cultural impact. Writers' strike: Accurate to the exact day. iPhone success: Called it six months before launch.
Each individual prediction could be explained as luck or insight. The pattern as a whole defied statistical possibility.
"So what's the explanation?" Leonard wondered, watching Stuart laugh at something Penny had said while effortlessly multitasking between customer service and inventory management. "Insider trading? Impossible. Time travel? Ridiculous. Alien intervention? Please."
But if the traditional explanations didn't work, what was left?
Leonard's scientific training demanded that he follow the evidence wherever it led, even if it led to conclusions that challenged his fundamental assumptions about reality. The evidence suggested that Stuart Bloom had somehow acquired knowledge and capabilities that exceeded normal human parameters.
The alternative explanation—that Stuart was exactly who he claimed to be and had simply gotten incredibly lucky while simultaneously undergoing a complete personality and physical transformation—was actually less plausible than some kind of supernatural intervention.
"Which is impossible," Leonard reminded himself. "Magic doesn't exist. People don't just suddenly become prophetic. There has to be a rational explanation."
But as he watched Stuart move through the shop with the easy confidence of someone who knew exactly what he was doing, Leonard couldn't shake the feeling that he was witnessing something that shouldn't be possible according to any rational model of human behavior.
POV Return: Stuart
After everyone left and I'd locked up the shop for the evening, I walked upstairs to have a conversation that would change everything.
Mrs. Chen, the building's owner, lived in the apartment directly above my shop. She was eighty-three years old, had owned the building for forty years, and had been trying to sell the penthouse unit for the past two years without success. The space had been empty since her son moved to Portland, and the maintenance costs were becoming burdensome for someone living on a fixed income.
I knocked on her door at seven PM sharp, having called ahead to arrange the meeting.
"Stuart!" she said, opening the door with a warm smile. "Come in, come in. You want some tea?"
"That would be great, Mrs. Chen."
Her apartment was small but immaculately maintained, filled with photographs of family members and the kind of furniture that lasted for decades. She moved slowly but efficiently, preparing tea with the ritualized precision of someone who'd been performing the same actions for sixty years.
"You said you wanted to talk about the penthouse," she said, settling into her favorite chair with a cup of jasmine tea.
"I did. I know you've been trying to sell it, and I wanted to make an offer."
Mrs. Chen's eyebrows rose. "You want to buy it? Not rent?"
"Buy. Cash offer, no financing contingencies, thirty-day close."
I pulled out a folder containing pre-approval letters from my bank, documentation of my liquid assets, and a purchase agreement that I'd had a real estate attorney prepare that afternoon.
Mrs. Chen studied the papers with the careful attention of someone who'd learned not to trust good news until it was verified. "This is a serious offer."
"Yes, ma'am."
"Can I ask where a comic book store owner gets this kind of money?"
"From impossible knowledge acquired during a supernatural experience that I can never fully explain," I thought. "But I'll go with the cover story."
"Investments," I said simply. "I got lucky with some technology stocks and cryptocurrency speculation. Turns out all that time reading tech blogs and industry newsletters actually paid off."
She laughed—a sound like wind chimes in a gentle breeze. "My son always said the internet was going to change everything. I guess he was right."
We spent the next hour going through the details, but the outcome was never really in doubt. Mrs. Chen needed to sell, and I was offering slightly above market value for a cash transaction with no complications. By eight-thirty, we'd reached an agreement in principle, contingent on inspection and final paperwork.
Walking back downstairs to my current apartment, I felt the weight of what I'd just committed to. The penthouse wasn't just a real estate investment—it was a declaration that I was no longer just surviving in Stuart's life, but actively building something new.
The space would become my headquarters, my sanctuary, the physical manifestation of everything the void's gifts had made possible. High ceilings, city views, enough room to host gatherings that could become legendary. It was the kind of space where important conversations happened, where creative collaborations were born, where the people I cared about could come together to build something larger than themselves.
"This is what success actually looks like," I realized, standing in my modest apartment and imagining the transformation to come. "Not just money in the bank or status symbols, but the freedom to create spaces and experiences that bring out the best in the people around you."
The void had given me incredible powers, but I was finally learning to use them for something more meaningful than just personal advancement. The penthouse would become proof that impossible gifts could be turned toward building something genuinely worthwhile.
Tomorrow, I would continue the delicate balancing act of being successful without being suspicious, helpful without being supernatural, wealthy without being isolated from the friendships that made all the material success meaningful.
But tonight, I allowed myself to imagine the future I was building—one where the weight of cosmic secrets was balanced by the joy of genuine human connection, where borrowed knowledge served real people, and where a man touched by the void could still find his way home to what mattered most.
The transformation was no longer just about surviving in Stuart's life. It was about proving worthy of the gifts I'd been given, and strong enough to bear the responsibility that came with them.
Note:
Please give good reviews and power stones itrings more people and more people means more chapters?
My Patreon is all about exploring 'What If' timelines, and you can get instant access to chapters far ahead of the public release.
Choose your journey:
Timeline Viewer ($6): Get 10 chapters of early access + 5 new chapters weekly.
Timeline Explorer ($9): Jump 15-20 chapters ahead of everyone.
Timeline Keeper ($15): Get Instant Access to chapters the moment I finish writing them. No more waiting.
Read the raw, unfiltered story as it unfolds. Your support makes this possible!
👉 Find it all at patreon.com/Whatif0