I Can Fast Travel Only Backwards
A courier gains fast travel that only reaches places she regrets leaving. A route planner helps her turn unfinished friendships into a transport network, until the system offers her the world's fastest route in exchange for making one irreparable mistake.
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How it begins
Zara Keene unlocked fast travel by remembering a goodbye she had handled badly. This seemed an unusually intrusive requirement for a courier license.
The system displayed three destinations: her former workshop, her brother's doorstep and a bridge where she had once pretended not to hear someone calling her name. None was on today's delivery route.
Otis Bell inspected the panel with the grave interest of a route planner who had encountered a shortcut capable of ruining his entire profession.
'Can you select the bridge?'
'I'd rather not.'
'Is that a technical limitation?'
Zara did not answer. The destination brightened.
She arrived before deciding to press it. The bridge smelled of wet rope. On the far side stood the woman whose apprenticeship she had refused to recommend, because there had been only one place and Zara had wanted it. Ten years later, the woman ran a small repair stall beneath the arch.
Otis appeared beside Zara holding both delivery bags.
'We should establish passenger rules,' he said.
'We should establish why you're here.'
'You were holding my route map.'
The woman under the bridge looked up. Recognition crossed her face, followed by something Zara had spent ten years telling herself was probably no longer there.
A notification offered experience for completing an unresolved interaction. Zara dismissed it. Whatever she said next could not be for points.
Before she moved, a second offer appeared. ADVANCED ROUTE AVAILABLE. CREATE ONE IRREPARABLE REGRET TO UNLOCK GLOBAL TRANSIT.
Otis read over her shoulder. His expression changed.
'That is an incentive problem.'
Across the bridge, the woman set down her tools and waited. Zara had crossed the kingdom carrying other people's urgent messages. Now the fastest road in the world had brought her to one sentence she could no longer postpone.
She took the delivery bags from Otis and walked the last few steps herself.
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Outline and characters
Develop this idea
Make regret-based travel specific and limited, with destinations changing as relationships change. Zara's past decisions need varying degrees of culpability and repair; not every goodbye was wrong. Otis contributes logistics and ethical scrutiny without replacing difficult conversations. The system's temptation to manufacture regret provides the central exploit to resist. Progression should reward durable routes built through honest connection, while preserving the right of former acquaintances to refuse access or forgiveness. Efficiency must remain a tool rather than the final value.
- Zara's transit skill reaches only regretted departures.
- Otis follows through an accidental passenger link.
- An old rival refuses an easy apology.
- Successful repair changes the destination rules.
- The system offers global access for manufactured regret.
- Other couriers exploit relationships as route assets.
- Zara discovers one departure was necessary and right.
- She builds voluntary reciprocal transit agreements.
- A delivery crisis tests her refusal of the exploit.
- The network grows through chosen ongoing connection.
Characters
- Zara Keene, 33. Fast-travel courier
- Otis Bell, 47. Trade-route planner
Series possibilities
- Zara and Otis map other travel skills whose convenience depends on unexamined emotional costs.
