Telegrafica: short stories collection

"You want to get one of those Neufuchas chips?" "I think it's pronounced with the CH like 'chisel', NeufuCHas. And hell yeah, you know I do." "It sounds fantastic, and everyone's talking about it." "They say that once you're fitted with the chip, the app can take you anywhere you can think of." A randomly overheard conversation whispered between friends in the quiet carriage of a train reaches the ears of Mr Jess Clements. A conversation, the outcome of which will take him on a journey from which he may never return, because even if he wants to go back, the road he took may no longer exist. Jess Clements is sitting in the quiet carriage of the 5:10 train, heading back to his apartment in Belltown. For him, the train ride home is a chance to relax and maybe read a little on the way. Today, he is reading a short story by one of his favorite authors that has become a classic, and it is only 20 pages long. So he figured he could get through it pretty quickly. The overheard conversation in the carriage made him smile at the similarities. He had read about the Neufuchas chips and the app that they were talking about, and it sounded like an interesting idea. "It was an app for the ages," according to the hype and the flood of online ads, and the glowing five-star reviews were skyrocketing on social media. People, especially the under-twenty-fives, were totally on board and mad for it. The young women on the train were a testament to the power of smart, targeted advertising.