Displaced - Day 2

He spent the rest of the morning doing his job, if you could call it one. Things were tight back home in ‘41. Good paying, legitimate jobs were few and far between. He was a skimmer, someone who trolled the constant stream of internet traffic for vulnerable transactions, those that could be intercepted, and most importantly, those that could be modified.

Internet security was said to be a bit of an oxymoron by those in the skimmer community, though it’d gotten far better than it had been when the ‘net was in its infancy. The rise of the mesh-net architecture had been both a blessing and a curse to skimmers; mesh-net had seen the end of big centralized authorities on the internet, which made for fewer big, tempting targets. But it also meant greater personal responsibility for security, and weaknesses always flourished under conditions like those.

The sad fact was that even by cheating the system and preying on the unwary, he couldn’t earn a living, and so he’d taken to living in the past. Literally.

A blinking visual alert dragged him out of his reverie. Incoming message, on a quantum-encrypted key.

“Hey yo Skeeve, you asleep at the slate today, or what?”

He cursed under his breath. “Yah, sorry man, early alarm, only on my first caf, you know how it is.”

“Get wit it, we got other skimmers waitin’.”

He wasn’t kidding. There were several teams worth of them, waiting on his unique combination of skills and gear to break through the protection on the Goldstream, skimmer slang for the shifting trails of data that wound their way through the digital banking networks of the mid-twenty first century.

“I’m on it, I’m on it.” His fingers stabbed at the screen harder than necessary, and he took a deep breath.

“You better be. This don’t go down right, you know who’s catchin’ the blame.”

He snorted. Empty threats. As far as he knew, they didn’t know any more than his online handle, Skeeve, and nobody knew where, or especially when, he was. Time hopping wasn’t something just anyone could do.

He rubbed his hollow cheek in thought as he shut the conversation down. Hitting the screen control, he stashed the equipment back in the crate and returned to the kitchen for more coffee. He was going to need to be sharp and alert for this operation. He needed the money bad if he wanted any hope of being able to return full-time to the present.

He sipped the coffee appreciatively. There was plenty to like about living in the past. Things were generally simpler, and a lot of things, especially coffee, seemed to taste a lot better. He’d brought enough supplies back with him that money wasn’t an issue in the bad economy of the 1930s. He’d almost be tempted to settle in permanently if it weren’t for Silvia.

His sister was several years younger than him, and still living in the high school student shelter. She’d be graduating in ‘42 though, and then she’d be turned out to fend for herself. They were on their own; he had to take care of her.

Displaced - Day 1

The mechanical ring of his alarm clock splintered his dreams, slowly and painfully dragging Charlie back to the world of wakefulness. He flailed an arm toward the source of the sound, finally silencing it with the slap of a palm.

He glanced over to check the time, but couldn’t see anything. “Stupid mechanical clocks,” he grumbled. He’d have given a lot to be able to use his phone, but it was too risky. He’d forget and leave it out, and it’d be seen. Not worth it.

He dragged himself out of bed and through the shower, which got him about halfway to wakefulness. Showers, he thought, are worth giving up the phone. And a lot more, come to it. It’d been a long time since he’d lived in a place with a functioning shower, much less one that he had all to himself.

He threw on a robe and turned on the mechanical percolator he’d prepared the night before to make his morning’s coffee. The machine plugged in to the city’s electrical grid, a luxury many of the people around him would be jealous of. It still took him some getting used to the idea that things needed wires to draw power.

Coffee perking away and filling the air with delicious scents, he opened the front door and collected the paper. It was 4:30am, according to his kitchen clock, yet the paper was already delivered. Remarkable. He returned to the kitchen and put his copy of The Herald, Saturday edition, on the table. March 1st, 1930. The headlines were full of doom and gloom about the depression. A lot of the bad effects had yet to be felt, he knew, but he tossed the paper aside. He didn’t need it.

He poured a mug of the strong-smelling brew and looked around almost furtively. The apartment was small for a two-bedroom place. The kitchen and living room were small and combined, with one bath and two bedrooms leading off of the living side of the room. It got no light even in the day, but it served his needs and then some. Considering where he’d come from, it was a paradise.

He stirred milk into his coffee and sipped, wincing at the heat but sighing at the relief of the caffeine working its way through his system. He turned and crossed the room to the other bedroom, which he’d set up as an office.

Shutting the door behind him, he set the coffee on a large flat desk next to the sole window in the room. The shades were drawn; he left them drawn at all times.

From under the desk he drew a small wooden crate and removed the top. Inside it was padded with wads of newsprint, collected from several weeks worth of The Herald. He rummaged under the padding until he found the tools of his trade; his smart phone, a larger format tablet computer, and a small but bulky temporal hub.

The temporal hub had one whole side dedicated to a status display. He tapped some controls on the display and waited for all the indicators to turn green. His tablet and phone, dormant until now, suddenly burst into life. Their screens turned on, time displays updated, notification counters ticked upward as contacts tried to get hold of him by mail or other means.

He sipped his coffee again and sighed in satisfaction. He was home again, at least virtually. He was reconnected to 2041.

Untitled Captain Koell Adventure - Day 11

The thought disquieted him and he searched inside a moment to figure out why.

An imposing barrier, a door shut against them. A dome, long shattered, protecting nothing. “It’s my life ever since I signed on with the agency,” he muttered. “I have got to get this debt sorted out, Aru. I have got to find a way to make some progress.”

Aru bleeped in response, and there was an inquisitive tone to it that suggested to Corwin the bot was confused.

“Never mind. For now, let’s make some progress on getting inside here. I want to know what it is we’re supposed to be picking up.”

Untitled Captain Koell Adventure - Day 10

A detail caught his eye that gave him pause then; the surface of the ship was covered with tiny pits. “Aru,” he said. “Scan this ship. The hull looks pitted to me.”

Aru chirped; he crouched down to examine the response. “Confirmed. The ship has taken damage consistent with micrometeorite impacts over an extended period of time, unshielded by an atmosphere.”

“So it’s been here for decades, maybe centuries,” Corwin mused.

“Unknown. The damage could have occurred elsewhere.”

Corwin chuckled, feeling a faint relief. “Maybe, but it seems most likely it was left over from a previous occupation, don’t you think?”

They pressed on, leaving the ship behind. The colony ring dominated the short horizon more and more with each step.

The heavy door was sealed and still, and for all Corwin could tell to look at it, may as well have remained undisturbed since the time the colonists called it home.

“So what do you think it is we’re after, Aru?” Corwin asked. It was rhetorical, of course; he knew perfectly well the little bot had no better idea than he did. He found himself hoping for some sort of physical artifact; ancient weaponry, tools or even written records. Such things turned up now and then; many of his tasks centered around authenticating finds like that.

Aru tweeted a reply; a quick glance confirmed the bot didn’t know either.

“Only one way to find out I guess.” He examined the exterior controls next to the door with a critical eye. Like the ship, they were pitted by centuries of micrometeorite impacts, rough under his gloved hands. “The pitting is a lot worse here. The ship was more recent. If it was damaged here,” he admitted, shooting a wry glance at the little bot.

Buttons depressed easily enough, but nothing responded. “Whatever powered this place gave up the ghost a long time ago, Aru.”

Untitled Captain Koell Adventure - Day 9

They started out towards the colony entrance. Corwin found himself casting glances at the other ship as they passed. It was smaller than his freighter, which he’d renamed the Wallowing Wail after wallowing in self pity for a few weeks after he started realizing what his life had turned into. It was his reminder to himself that it’d been his choice, even if it’d been forced on him.

The smaller craft wasn’t any fighter design he’d ever seen, and wasn’t any sort of freighter either. “What do you make of it, Aru? A shuttle or small transit ship?”

He slowed to check Aru’s display. “It appears to be a customized shuttle craft of a type not in my database.”

The Wail wasn’t quite big enough to take the whole shuttle into its cargo bay, but it was close. He estimated it would probably serve four people comfortably, or six uncomfortably. If they’re unfriendly, I hope they like traveling comfortably, he thought. He found himself adjusting the weight of the guns at his hips and tried not to think about facing six unfriendlies.

They passed the shuttle without incident; either nobody was home, or they weren’t concerned by the new arrivals. It was difficult to tell how long ago the shuttle’s owners had passed this way. Without an atmosphere to speak of, there was no dust to speak of to mark a trail, and no other sign Aru’s sensors could detect. It did indicate they’d passed long enough ago to have allowed the conducted heat of their boots to have dissipated, but Aru assured him that only meant they had been gone more than roughly fifteen minutes.