This wasn’t the lab. This wasn’t even close to where she intended to jump, and she’d have to analyze what went wrong in a minute. But the sight of the tourist galleon leaving port at sunset was still a pretty awesome view from the edge of the deserted beach parking lot. Might as well enjoy it. Ainan sat down on one of the bollards that surrounded the lot, and dropped her pack on top of her gun, by her feet.
Just as she was starting to really vibe with the sounds of nature at twilight, a car pulled up and parked in the space next to her in the lot. She turned and glanced at the car, noted that it was a lone man and he was pulling out a six pack of Mike’s Hard Lemonade, then turned back to the ship heading out to sea.
“Pretty neat sight, huh?” He sat on the next bollard and offered her a bottle.
She took it. “Yeah. I’ve never been here before. I know it’s touristy, but I like it anyway.” She opened the bottle and took a long first gulp. It’d been a while.
He pulled out his iPhone and got ready to take a picture. She glanced sideways at the home screen to try to get an idea of the date. It was too small to read. But at least she knew she was in the early 2020s now from the model of the phone. She’d had a similar one when she was younger.
“Hey, you wanna be in my picture tonight? I take a new picture every night around this time -- for reference. I’m a photographer, but I’m a better painter.”
“I’m a scientist.” She took another sip. “And an engineer.”
“Oh yeah? That’s cool. Whaddya working on?”
“Top secret stuff. So no picture.”
“That makes sense around here. And makes your backpack make more sense, too. That’s quite a contraption you got there. The beach part of your current project?”
“It wouldn’t be top secret if I told you all about it, now would it.”
He chuckled. “Nope, probably not. Looks cool though.” He took a few pictures while she sipped. “You sure you don’t want to be in one, just as a silhouette?”
“I’m flattered – but no. Thanks.”
Ainan gulped the end of the lemonade. Leaning over, she placed the bottle on the edge of the pavement next to her bollard. Then, she lifted the edge of her pack, and grabbed her gun, which he would not recognize as a real gun. She turned and shot him point blank in the chest.
He hardly had time to look stunned, as his body and iPhone slammed backward onto the pavement. The gun’s report was nearly inaudible.
“Sorry dude, but you already saw too much. Hope you weren’t important in this flow.” She stomped his phone hard, until it broke -- then grabbed his hand, and began pulling him back toward the sand. “But if you were,” she groaned, “don’t worry, you exist in many others, in which everything turns out ok,” she sucked in a breath, “probably, because you never meet me, at sunset--” she grunted, “on the beach.” It took a few more minutes for her to get his whole body through the bollards and back onto the sand.
She was winded. She grabbed another lemonade and took a drink, then set it down next to her bollard and her empty.
She posed his dead body -- back against his bollard, sitting with his head propped on his left hand, left elbow propped on left knee, leg held in place by the sand. She placed what was left of his lemonade -- which he’d set down on the pavement and which was miraculously missed by his feet and leg as he fell -- inside his other hand, standing in the sand.
She walked to the tide to clean herself up. She also rinsed the couple of spots from her outer shirt. She turned and walked back, drying her face, neck, and arms with her shirt as she walked.
She sat down next to him in the sand, and picked up her own drink.
The blood on the pavement behind them would be mostly concealed from the road by his car, but she’d have to move along pretty soon. She’d learned to savor moments like these, though, so she’d stick around for at least ten minutes yet.
The galleon sailed on, silhouetted and dark on one side, and golden on the other. A light breeze stirred the tiny patch of weeds next to her, and brought the smell of the ocean with it.
She pulled her pack onto her lap, and began to examine the workings of the time capsule, looking for some obvious programming error or hardware issue that might have caused her to be pulled into the wrong time flow.
She didn’t find anything revealing right away, so she decided to do a hard restart and try again, and see if it worked. If it did, she’d be at the lab, which was a better place to investigate jumping errors, anyway.
Unlike her former pursuer, hopefully she’d arrive in the same condition in which she left.
She stood up and put her pack on, turning to her photographer friend, and saluted. “Welcome to the Isle of the Forgotten in the River of Time.” She paused, taking one last look over her shoulder at the disappearing sliver of sun, and the darkened ship. “I’ve been there, you know. Can’t say I liked it. But it’s probably more enjoyable if you’re dead.”
What happens next?
Reply to this email with your vote (1, 2, or 3):
- Ainan makes it back to the lab and steals a critical piece of tech
- Jonas v. Ainan scene
- We meet a new character in his spaceship: Tucker
