Rebirth

Part Two: Awake

Indications of morning light made Monty squint, yawning. Interspersed and lit by the sun was an array of new colour, that startled him, pulling him into full consciousness.

Monty blinked and stared. Strange, sleek instruments and motifs adorned the walls of the room and even floated in the air. Bobo, however, remained by his side, but- it was not the same Bobo. The teddy bear's fur had a different texture.

Frowning, Monty sat up in bed, but stopped, startled by his pyjamas. His nightshirt had morphed into a loose shift. He touched the fabric, and then studied his hands, slowly raising them to eye level. His skin was smoother than he remembered, and, overall, his body felt lighter.

What's happened to me?

Cautiously, Monty moved his hand up to his head. He took a short, hanging piece of hair by his fingers. It was brown again, perhaps faded a bit. He had to find a mirror... though, at the same time, he was almost afraid to see what would be there.
On the table by the bed were sat Smithers' glasses, normalcy in the strange alterations of reality. He picked them up, feeling the plastic and glass between his fingers, then went to the window. The curtain was open, as he'd left it last night, but was rolled up instead of pushed to the sides of the window. When he raised his hand to touch it, the curtain unfurled on its own and covered the window. Startled, Monty tried repeating the gesture, and the curtain followed his motion, returning to its rolled state. The view outside looked over the grounds of the manor, and beyond that the town of Springfield.

But it was not the same Springfield, if the flying apparatuses in the sky were anything to go by. At first he thought they were airplanes, but one came closer, and it was more akin to a... hovercraft. Below that, but still high up, there were smaller flying objects, following invisible lines and curves, as if it were a road. Were they vehicles?

Flitting his gaze aside, there was his reflection in the window's glass. Monty ran his hand on the side of his face in disbelief. It was still him, but the glass depicted his... forties or fifties. Had he travelled into the past? But this wasn't his past, more so a distant future. Was he still asleep? His new surroundings felt too real to have been conjured by his mind.

There was a flashing light and a vibration from one of the instruments by the nightstand, making him turn from the reflection. It looked similar enough to a modern mobile telephone. The light accompanied a message: Incoming call from Darren Raina, UServ Corp. Accept?
Monty had no idea who Darren Raina or what UServ Corp were, or why they were calling him. But he tapped his finger on 'accept' anyway, curious. A new screen appeared to indicate a call was in session, stretching vertically from the device itself.

Monty cleared his throat and spoke. "Hello?"

"Mr Burns, I'm Darren Raina."
"I'm not familiar..."

"Of UServ?"
"Er..."

"...We'd like to invite you to our showroom here in Springfield, and browse some of our available models. Do you have time today?"

Models? "I may. Why?"

"You don't have an assistant, correct? You aren't registered with us. That's why I wanted to call you personally."

Assistant...?

Monty froze. Smithers... Smithers was dead. What was this UServ Corp? Why did they want him to have another assistant?

"I don't need another assistant yet," he snarled, "if you must know, I just lost mine."

"So you do need a new one," Raina said, his nonchalant attitude sickening, "which company were you registered with for your old assistant?"
Monty frowned. Somehow he had a feeling that Raina and he weren't talking about the same thing. "Er..."