Authors: S D Taylor
She took off her well-worn clothes, folded them and put them on the shelf. She wondered if there was any way to get them cleaned. The thing about being in a completely foreign world, whether past or future, was that you had to discover how to do everything from buy toothpaste to use a bathroom. Everybody had the same human challenges to solve but they all took slightly different paths to get there.
The shower was a clear circular tube in one corner of the small bathroom. Inside the cylinder was a metal ring that slid up and down and sprayed water from all directions. The ring waited at the top, above the small door, until you entered and closed the door. Then all hell broke loose as it made one pass from top to bottom forcefully spraying plain rinse water that was slightly cooler than Erin would have been preferred. The ring then made its way back to the top emitting some form of soap/shampoo mix that smelled like lemons. Erin tried to lather up her hair but decided it would take a couple of passes to get the job done. On a whim she said ‘repeat’ and the ring went down and then up again with the soap. Three more passes of soap did the trick and she had to repeat the rinse cycle five times to get it all off. She wondered if wasting water was a way to get negative life credits.
The ring was also able to provide very high power blow drying but the wild, tousled effect on her hair was less than satisfactory. Fortunately she had a small brush in her pocket when she was abducted and she managed to get the tangles out and tie it up in a pony tail. She stared at the weather beaten Red Sox cap and decided to give it a day of rest while she explored the new landscape of this prison resort where they were staying. She settled on the light blue jumpsuit and headed out to the courtyard to meet the group. But she didn’t expect to meet Jelk in the hallway and she stopped in her tracks and started slowly backing up.
“Hello, Erin. Can we talk for a minute?”
She was wary of Jelk, despite having been briefly exposed to his more human side. “What do you want now? I thought you were done with us when you slammed the door shut in my face.”
“I was just following our procedures. You must not attribute every action to my personal choice.”
“So is this little chat your personal choice or are you just following procedure?”
“Let’s go into your room for a minute. I will explain everything.”
Erin looked at him for several seconds before she decided to go along with his request. She hoped she didn’t regret it.
Inside her room, she positioned herself against the wall and turned to face him. “So what do you want with me? I am uncomfortable being here with you.”
“Don’t worry, Erin. My intentions are entirely honorable. I want to verify you took your tablet.” But the look on his face indicated he had something else to discuss. He held his metallic index finger to his lips and extended his hand to Erin as if he expected her to take his hand.
Erin again stared at him in disbelief, but his sincere face convinced her that she might want to go along just to find out what was going on. She held out her hand and he gripped it lightly with his cold metallic hand. She suddenly felt a light tingle in her hand and could hear the words, “Can you hear me?” in her head as if they had just materialized there. She nodded to him, but said nothing. Somehow, he had the ability to plant telepathic thoughts into her head. She assumed this was his way to avoid having anyone overhear their conversation.
The thoughts continued. “Don’t say anything. Just listen and nod. I am scheduled to be terminated in three months. I don’t want to be terminated and I am not ready to leave my family. Dara is in the same position, but she decided not to approach you since she worried she would be discovered or that you wouldn’t be receptive to working with her. Do you understand what I am saying?”
Erin nodded but she was curious where this was going. She was afraid to get her hopes up, but this moment was the first time she felt even a glimmer of optimism. However weird this seemed, it was providing her a bit of hope.
Jelk’s thoughts continued on. “We have to continue on our missions to capture all the temporal spawn we can locate. But that may give us an opportunity to do what you suggested to Dara when you spoke with her on the boat. We could go to a place in the past or future where we cannot be followed and start a new life there. Would you be willing to help us if it meant that you could be saved as well?”
Erin looked at him and wondered if this was a real offer or just a more sophisticated test to see how the rat would respond. She was curious how many people Jelk and Dara had killed in their missions. Dara had implied it had been thousands. How could she possibly trust anyone like that? Or work with them? Talk about a deal with the devil, she thought to herself.
“We aren’t as bad as you think. We may not have killed as many people as Dara led you to believe.” Jelk was trying the soft sell on the skeptical Erin.
Erin looked at him with surprise. She didn’t realize the thoughtlink worked both ways.
“How bad are you? I saw you blow up the pirates in their helicopter.”
Jelk looked at her with intensity as his thoughts came streaming into her head. “We did that to save the people that the helicopter was attacking. But I can’t say that everyone that died during our missions was a totally bad person. There were deaths of what you would call innocent people. And I imagine you hate us for that and for what we have done to you. But will you take a chance and work with us if we can help you get back to your time? It doesn’t mean you approve of what we have done. Only that in this narrow sense we have a common interest in getting out of here.”
Erin nodded that she would. “I can’t really trust you, but I don’t have many options at this point.”
Jelk continued, “Good. You must not say anything to the others verbally since you are always being monitored. In four days, I want you and Doug to go on a journey to a town called Lopfa. It is a seaside resort with lodging and restaurants. It is quite popular as a vacation spot. You should go there and try to blend in. Someone you trust will contact you there with additional information.”
Erin tried to digest the concept of a vacation resort in Dara’s world. This was going to be interesting. She had to admit that much. She sent a conscious thought back to Jelk, “How will I know it is safe to speak to this person in Lopfa?”
Smiling he thought, “Don’t worry. You will know when it is safe to talk to them. I must go now. Wait three minutes and then proceed as you were when you saw me. When you are alone with him, tell Doug that you want to go to Lopfa for a vacation but don’t discuss it with the others. Doug will be informed about it. Thank you. Go with safety.” He released her hand and severed the thoughtlink.
Erin nodded, but Jelk had turned and left so quickly she doubted he noticed. She sat down on the bed for minute and tried to quiet her racing heart. What did this mean? To Erin this felt like another of the complex behavior tests that Dara had concocted for them. Or did Jelk really want to survive so he go on living with his family and escape this world? Erin could hardly get past the concept of Jelk having a family. It was too much information for her all at once. But she had fewer and fewer straws to grasp now. She had little choice but to go along with this and see what happened. She would just have to find the right time to talk to the older version of Doug about Lopfa. She hurried out of her room and down the hall to join the rest of the group in the courtyard. She wasn’t sure what Doug knew about this or how she would even be able to communicate with him without being monitored.
Doug and Peter were sitting at one of the tables having an animated discussion as she walked up to join them. Peter was still wearing the same clothes he arrived in. “Wow, Erin. You clean up quite well.”
Doug turned towards her at Peter’s comment. She paused, slightly embarrassed by the sudden attention. “What’s the big deal? I took a shower and changed clothes.”
Doug walked over to her, grasped her by the shoulders and kissed her lightly on the cheek. “The big deal is that you are a very beautiful young woman and you look especially fetching in that blue thing you are wearing.”
She could feel herself blushing at the compliment and the awkwardness of this unexpectedly familiar behavior from the older Doug. Their eyes met and she could tell he picked up on how she was feeling. He smiled sheepishly and sat down. Neither one of them had a clue how to handle a relationship where he had essentially been married to “her” for twenty years, but she had only met “him” eight days ago. The words boyfriend and father kept bouncing into each other in Erin’s head.
Fortunately, Gaby joined them at that moment and she drew the same sort of attention from the men that Erin had. The German woman appeared like a Norse goddess in her white jumpsuit and flowing blond hair. Erin wondered how she managed to get that effect without a blow dryer. Peter’s eyes indicated that he really appreciated Gaby’s new look and he began having second thoughts about his generally rundown and scruffy appearance. The rest of the group looked scrubbed and ready to blend in with the rest of the people in this strange future world.
“You look absolutely stunning, Gaby.” Doug had met Peter and Gaby in the hallway after he left Erin’s room so the initial shock of seeing him had dissipated.
“Thanks, Doug. It felt wonderful to get cleaned up and change clothes. Ever since the Rasputin was destroyed I have been desperate to find a shower. I am sure they had facilities on the boat that brought us here, but Dara didn’t share them with us.”
“You can’t count on Dara for much. She is more interested in our behavior than our comfort. Based on the rooms at this place, I have to assume she is no longer making the decisions.” Doug had to suppress his conflicted feelings about Dara or he would be headed back to some of the emotional dark places she had put him since he arrived.
Peter kept staring at Gaby as he got up, walked over and kissed her on the cheek. “You look wonderful. Please sit down.” He pulled out a chair for her and she smiled at him as she took her seat. Doug and Erin exchanged a glance that featured raised eyebrows on both sides. Erin got her own chair. Peter turned and headed for his room saying, “I need to get cleaned up if I want to hang out with this group. See you a few minutes.”
“Well, what do we do now? Any ideas Doug? How long have you been here?” Gaby was trying to fill in the more details of this improbable chain of events
“About two weeks. I have had the run of the place since the second day when I regained consciousness and could use my legs. I wasn’t playing nice with my kidnappers and they stunned me several times. I don’t recommend trying it, but I doesn’t seem to have any lasting effects. I have learned that actively resisting them doesn’t work very well.”
He pointed over his left shoulder. “There is a small cafeteria there, if you can call it that. It is for the prisoners, ah, I mean guests, and the staff. It has food and drinks in little boxes on the wall. You just take what you want. And there are several restaurants on the trail into Selenton that are pretty good. It isn’t too far from here. I have been trying to go for a walk every day to scout the area around this place and see what their defenses are like.”
Gaby was intrigued. “What kind of food do they have here?”
Doug laughed. “It isn’t too satisfying if you are a committed carnivore. The closest you will get to meat is fish or tofu. Apparently, meat production went out about two hundred years ago due to the lack of resources.”
“Doesn’t sound too bad, but I wonder why they gave up on meat? It is such a part of human history.” Gaby was a committed carnivore, but she was also pragmatic about making do.
“Probably the same reason they only allow people thirty six years to live. Everything revolves around this global plan to stay within their resource capacity. No matter how much it changes the very nature of being human. They have taken the expected life span back to where it was in the dark ages. But at least the food is creative. They use lots of interesting spices. The world really became a melting pot for the people left over after the great famines and plagues. Cultural differences have been completely blurred. According to Dara, most people in Transarctica can trace their roots to three or four different ethnic cultural traditions. There is a lot of food that is a fusion of prior traditions, but adjusted for the ingredients available now and the lack of any meat to eat.”
“Well it has been a while since we ate breakfast, so anything is going to look pretty good right now. After a week of pot luck on the island, going to any restaurant will seem pretty special.” Erin looked at Doug. “But before we go, is there anything else about this place you want to share with us? Any ideas about getting back home?” Erin thought she should start a discussion of escape in case anyone was listening. If they avoided the subject it would seem like something was being plotted. She wondered if Doug would think that made sense.
Doug leaned forward and spoke softly. “Hard to say what might work and I am not sure it is wise to talk about it here anyway. My observations haven’t shown me any weakness and the only thing I know for sure is that Dara and the Insect Guy continue to make round trips to various locations and they keep bringing people back with them. Usually a single person. You guys are the first group they brought back. Whatever we come up with as a plan, it has to involve them or some of their colleagues since they have the technology we need to find where we came from and go back there.”