Alec, the (war)time-tours guide

A Chuck Wendig prompt - create a character

Ah, is this gonna be one of those interviews? I’ll have none of that. Thanks.

Of course I know what you wanna ask! ‘Sex, age, job, full name and shoe size? Pimples on my ass?’ Well? 

I’m a time traveller. Obviously.  Did I just stutter? Could you stop wasting my time? You know what?

Shut up! I’ll talk. I tell you something people never ask. I travel through time. Yes. I sounds insanely badass and mysterious, but it’s horrible.

I can’t shake off the wooziness. I’m nauseous nearly all day. Can’t eat or drink too much, cause I throw up. I have to eat a lot of sweets, so my brain doesn’t crash after a jump.

My hands shake whenever I get stressed, and I’m stiff in the morning. Not the good kind of stiff. My cold joints hurt, my back aches and it stops when I’m moving. So I have to move. Constantly.

I have to run, jog so I can walk properly.

Nightmares are my routine. 

How’d you feel, if you’d forget your daughter’s first steps, or her birth? Yes, I’ve been there. Seen her, laughed with her, hugged her, nuzzled with her and sucked in her sweet scent… Tell me, would you trade those memories?  For money?  For some egomaniacs, who plays war-safari and kill, without risks? Cause they’ve got privilege, ‘n enough money to buy themselves the right to kill people.

I want to throw up, every time I see one of those sleek suits.

It’s a disease. The doctors call it temporal multi-sensorial memory runaway. A special kind of retrograde amnesia.

But you’ve heard of time traveller’s disease, haven’t you?

There you go. Now do something with that!

Septim

He felt the pressure-lock shutting behind him. Latching. He clutched at his suit and breathed.

To catch a sane thought he tried to shake off the wooziness, but his head was spinning,  fingers tingling. All that adrenalin screaming through his system. The sensation of moving skin and muscles under his hands. The fading power of defense, which wasn’t a defense anymore. His arms would remember that feeling as long as he lived. The nausea was overwhelming. A big gulp forced his stomach back down.

no degree in humanology

 

“What?! That?! That mud ball? You´re kidding me, right? A fuckin´ joke!” He slams his fist on the monitor desk. The electronics, man! Watch it! I hate it when he does that.

Humans seem to have the uncontrollable urge, to transform emotional energy into kinetic energy. Useless, if you ask me, but I´m no expert in Humanology.

“No.” I don´t think it was a joke. The colony did well hiding the circumstances of this job description, behind carefully chosen words. Who would be dumb – or desperate – enough to get himself hired into this sector of the galaxy?

The Harpy

part 4 - perks of jumbled memories

-part 1, -part 2, -part 3

The black suit reacts to his touch with tiny tentacles reaching up towards the warmth of his skin. In no time it seems, the suit has liquified. It wraps him up from head to the tip of his toes. “Stop tickling,“ he giggles.

The suit hardens, and becomes transparent over his face. Those green eyes shine behind the visor, like lit from the inside. Is it bioluminescence? “Can you hear me? How’s it feeling?“ I ask.

“Awesome! But you could take off my leg, and I’d still feel awesome. With her in my system… Everything’s fabulous! She thinks you’re not dangerous.“ His voice is slightly distorted, as if speaking with two voices, his own and a more soft, lightly slurred one.

“…You said… she?!“

The Harpy

part 3 - code 330

-part 1, -part 2

“What did you mean by, she’s not just a cargo ship?“ Eddy plunks down into a pilot seat, shrugs and ruffles his dark hair.

“You know- They don’t let a rookie doctor and a priceless AI in a man suit, just fly off like that, would they? Your company protects its belongings damn well. What do you think? They let you deactivate the tracking device you know of, and do nothing? Ha!“ I… I really did! Now that he puts it that way, it sounds bonkers.

The Harpy

part 2 -  confused AI

- part 1 -another way to die

„Captain Edward Wong, Doctor Oscar Wellington, two cyborg pilots, ninety-six maintenance robots, and me.“ The Harpy answers in a flat tone.

„See?“ Eddy gives me the I-told-you-so-look. „Where is Proto?“ he asks her.

„Proto is not on board.“ What?! „His suit is missing. Scanning… He is jamming me.“ Another I-told-you-so-look.

Proto is my assistant. He isn’t supposed to leave the ship. Where is he? What the hell is going on? He’s going to get in trouble…

The Harpy

part 1 - another way to die

 

“Ugh. Stop. Go away!” I chase away the light and the fingers forcing my eyes open. „Where’s the horse?“ I crow.

„What horse?“ Who’s voice is that? The light hurts my eyes.

„That kicked me in the chest? Catch it, before it runs off.“ Sighing. The light and fingers retract. “Proto? Is that you?” I try to sit up, but the floor is spinning.

“No. Don’t you scare me like that, EVER again! Stay where you are, you hear me?” Looks like an uniform. I know that uniform. I know that shape. A captainshaped uniform… Oh… I’m in serious trouble. His silhouette swims into my field of view. Why is he kneeling beside me? Huh… I’m soaked. Why? I’m definitely too groggy for any of these answers. „Still on the ship, aren’t I?”

nerd

Her fingers trailing along the gleaming line on the side of the machine.”Why is it soft?” She retracts surprised her fingers, not being able to hide her disgust. “I mean, should it be like this?”

“Hm? Yeah. It has to. I’d be glad if you didn’t contaminate it.” I tell her, still busy calculating. I stew over some algorithms. I’m not able to find the error – the EPUs seem to get contradictory data from one of the cores.

“It’s like jello!” She giggles. I turn around.

“You never heard about neuronal silica gel? You know, the brain equivalent of AIs!”  I may regret letting her in, after all… “No?” Come on, you’d understand if you’d seen her face. So miserable. Locked out in the pouring rain, she looked like a kicked dog. I couldn’t resist…”Never mind. It’ll be well hidden.” As planned under all those carbon fibre enhanced shielding units. “Under those, over there. They’ll protect it. Hopefully.” I point to the black pile on the other side of the room.

“And here I was thinking, that was nothing but junk.” She smiles. Man. Why do women have to smile? Like they know my weak spots. A humming noise comes from somewhere. I swallow. The humming fades away.

“Cause it is … somehow, um – junk…” More swallowing. I would have never admitted that to anyone. Damn. “Here’s a towel over there, dry clothes in the closet. Not your size, but better than nothing, right? Go change and I’ll make some tea. K?” She smiles even more. The buzzing. It’s in my head, right between my ears. Hot cheeks. I grab one of the  clean towels and give it to her. Her fingers touch mine. Feels like tiny hot needles under my skin. A burning sensation not only on my skin… I musn’t freak out. Smile.

“Tea would be great!” That’s relief. I guess.

“You can change over there. It’s not much, I know-”

“Nono. It’s great. You let me in. I was wandering around for several hours. You’re the first one letting me in…Thank you. You are very kind.” She’s been wondering around? Maybe she’s homeless… She doesn’t look like a beggar. Maybe a thief… Got nothing of value here anyway…  But who knows. The rain outside dims the light. Everything’s grey. Even greyer than usually. It wasn’t even evening. I guess it won’t stop for some days. The radio said something about early monsoon season. The tea kettle started whistling. Tea.

“Which you want?”

“Which what?” She sneaks up behind me. Yawns.

“Tea. Tea. Um, yeah… Tea”

“My, my. You’re jumpy. Everything you drink will be fine.” She says, seemingly bored. “Say. What does this do?”

“What? NO! Nononononono. Don’t touch that! You gonna blow us up!” I push her away from the monitoring panel. “It’s the self-destruct” Some weird explanation for the emergency power override button- I know, I know- but for now it has to be sufficient. I thrust her the cup of tea into her hands.

“Why would you need a self-destruct?! Are you building bombs?”

spirited specimen

Falling!

He hit something hard.

A noise. Beeping. Screeching?

Something shuffled over the floor…

FLOOR?!

heights and depths of Naboo

It’s been maybe ages, long-lost days

A memory and breaking noises that pay

For those moments of happiness I had…