Bobby Chen was lost in time.

That’s what he liked to tell himself on some days, looking out through his New York penthouse apartment window at the spiderweb of activity below. Aircars and maglevs left and right, disorganized bustle in all three dimensions, tons of brushed chrome and green energy vehicles speeding this way and that.

Staring at this chaotic milieu, Bobby imagined plumes of coal smoke, rickshaws and sweat, horses and market babble in a throng of humanity. Instead of white marble and steel, he pictured brick and mortar, bales of hay and dust. He liked to think he could hear shouts in Mandarin of tradesmen hawking their wares, instead of cultured American English autovoxes advertising the newest corporate solutions.

Bobby Chen was lost in time – he thought himself belonging to a world centuries older, not in this energy-efficient, techno-progressive New York City that was the jewel of the New United Federation. A few years ago he’d applied for a name change – digging through his ancestral records, he found interesting names like Lu, Zhou, and Qin. Alas, in the hyper-controlled New United Federation, bureaucrats did not look favorably upon a frivolous change from Bobby to Lufei, so his request was denied.

All that was about to change, Bobby thought to himself. From his viewpoint on the deck, he could see the Manhattan skyscape amidst the morning fog. Aircars zipped through the sky, weaving between the skyscraper needles that thrust infinitely high into the air. Maglev cruisers zoomed on the waves around him, skimming lightly across the pristine, reclaimed waters around Manhattan.

The Empress stuck out like a sore thumb in comparison. Thrown together from odd pieces of rare wood, it had taken Bobby years to find enough antiques to construct the authentic Chinese junk. Lumber was near impossible to come by in this age, much to Bobby’s dismay. Oh, synth-trees were all the rage, but real, organic wood was worth its weight in platinum. The Empress had cost a fortune to make – but it was worth it.

A slow wave rocked the planking beneath Bobby’s feet. Right now, the Empress was floating in the water, oblivious to the high-tech activity surrounding it. Bobby could make out curious faces on other ships staring at his anachronistic barge, puzzled at the historic artifact floating before their eyes. He smiled – they didn’t understand, could only watch the V-reels and scratch the surface of it, never dig deep inside and feel the past.

He adjusted the sails, marveling at the roughness of the coarse rope in his hands. A few minor changes, and now the ship pointed outwards, away from land. The fog obscured his vision, but his mind filled in the blanks left by reality. Bobby saw the vast ocean before him, imagining treacherous storms, intrepid explorers, and mythical sea-beasts. As the wind picked up, the Empress sailed further and further away from Manhattan, from civilization and dryness. A seagull – one of the few remaining, after the climate change – cawed and flapped its wings above Bobby’s head. A salt breeze flowed in, tickling his nose and soothing his warm skin.

This was the life, he thought. This was what he had been missing his whole life, swallowed up by the constant pandemonium of society. As the ship picked up speed, he fancied himself a weary traveler, ready to return after an impossibly long foray into the future. The misty fog lay before him, but he would enter it and embrace the familiar unknown, for as long as he pleased.

Content with that thought, Lufei Chen sailed home.