Hayley couldn't hold it any longer.

  She had to go when he took out an unnatural and reactive green sand that he shoveled onto the bodies. The mist, the smell, the hissing; something made her want to relieve herself as much as she was relieved to see the dead bodies of the lowmen disappear in the misty air.

  Then he sat her in a chair in that small forward area and barricaded himself behind a large door leading to a warehouse.

  The building had once been a shop, she sat near a counter. Everything else had been removed long prior, although the barrel of his trash smelled even from a distance.

  She had tried the warehouse door quietly, more than a few times, and found it locked. Now, she banged with her fist.

  He opened the door looking crazed. His foot was held firmly behind the door, which was only open but an inch. The electric light flashed and glittered behind him.

  “What?!” he asked, not really asking.

  She blushed suddenly. She couldn't find the courage to discuss such things with a gentleman.

  “I… need to make,” she said, hardly louder than a whisper.

  “A what now?”

  “Make.” She knew he should know what that meant.

  “Make,” she said louder, realizing the noise behind him might be louder to him than she was.

  “The fuh? Make what?” he asked, his accent and dialect barely understandable.

  “Make,” she glanced down, doing everything but making on the floor.

  “Oh, like pee? Shit?”

  She didn't know those euphemisms, but his tone matched. He was foreign after all.

  “If that is what it is called where you are from, then yes. Urgently. Lest I make upon the floor.”

  She couldn't believe he said something so crude.

  He laughed.

  “Uh, you can't be back here, and I—”

  He looked back and saw something. He went pale, and ran back towards it.

  She opened the door.

  The room was filled from ceiling to floor with all manner of machinery. Much of it seemed skinned in metals, but more of that not-wood substance too, like filmy glass made pliable. She walked in and touched a blue squarish object with wires pouring from behind it like a full head of hair. It felt almost slippery, nothing like cool metal or warm wood. Like a neutral outside thing. Soft, but still firm against her touch. With a bit of pressure she saw its frame bow inward slightly. She removed her hand and it promptly resumed its original shape

  “Don’t fucking touch anything!” he called out.

  She looked to see him dragging the weapon and a large pack through an open doorway.

  It was taller and wider than any home's doorway or even most loading doors to warehouses, rimmed in thick metal glowing with electric lighting over three man-lengths tall. The edges moved, like the shore of a lake made of invisible light.

  He walked through it into a jungle and began taking samples of the dirt.

  Nova Yorkshire had no jungles.

  Hayley walked through the doorway and felt like the entire world fell apart. She could hardly see, breathe, or stand as up became down and in became out.

  As quick as it came, it ended. She stood in a jungle choking down the thick, heavy air.

  The doorway was gone.

  “Oh fuck no, you didn’t. I told you!”

  She backed away from his scolding. Maybe he wasn't a gentleman. She didn't know the curse, but heard how he spit it. She fought the tears in her eyes.

  “You must not… Must not swear in the presence of a lady, sir.”

  Lee set down his equipment and took a step toward her, and she flinched away.

  “Look, I'm sorry. We talk differently in… Uh… My place. I’ll cool it.”

  “Appreciate it, I do.”

  “But the machine can't take two people. You're lucky I'm awell, that we both are so light. God, you must have bad bones too.”

  “Bones?”

  “Nevermind. Um… Let me do my work, and the return gate will open in an hour.”

  “An hour?” she realized she heard the first bell when the lowmens’ bodies were hissing into foul air. She expected the second every second as she waited

  “I need to make. Where does one find that in your private jungle?”

  Lee looked around.

  “This isn't my jungle, okay? You can go wherever you would like, I guess? ”

  He pulled out the talking box.

  “Lee, afternoon, two two dash oh four mark seven five. Hayley, the local, followed me into the next test site, seventeen alpha, and will be eliminating here. Containment warning to be corrected.”

  “What is that box, and why do you speak to it that way?”

  “Uh, I thought you had to pee?”

  Hayley blushed again and fought internally for the words to both make him understand without being so crude.

  “Both,” is what she found.

  “Eww. Good luck. Don't do it over here, I need these samples pure.”

  Hayley stood watching Lee take samples of various plants and dirt, and pointing his box at them while it made clicking noises. She could not imagine making outdoors, she had no experience. She almost never made anywhere but home.

  She looked around and had a plan form.

  The tree roots and felled trees were abundant. She would take her leave, far enough that Lee could not catch up easily, and remove her outergarments. She could peacefully make upon a tree or its outstretched root, then return to a politely dressed state.

  Without a word, she walked in a random direction until she couldn't hear or see Lee, then a little farther as she looked for a perfect root.

  She thought of all the places she would rather be, and conversations she would rather have. Hayley decided she would ask him of his homeland and show all the interest in him that her parents coached her to show to the butcher’s son.

  The root appeared and even had a ring of feathers around its edges.

  “Well, well, this is downright royal,” she said to herself, peeling layer after layer of polite garments from herself.

  Once she was down to just the brazier, overshirt, and breaches, she slid the breaches down and sat on the commode sized, feathered root.

  The Columbic Federate had not bothered with the ideas of sanitization that Lee would have in this scenario, and she slid her breaches back just in time to see the newly hatched feathered reptile squirming around where she had just sat.

  ***

  Hayley was already reaching down when she saw them, and tumbled backwards as she was startled by them. What she thought were rocks were in fact eggs, much larger than any egg she had ever seen. Her mind raced as she screamed, losing grip of the garment she had as she tumbled.

  Before she could get her bearings, she heard another scream. Or something like a scream if one only had a stack of flutes in which to produce the sound. A second fluted scream came from a different direction, farther away. Different tone, but it was clear they were singing to each other. The song was of fright, and alert, and advance.

  Hayley ran, garment be damned. She could run more easily and far faster without them.

  She imagined Lee there watching her be sized for a new dress of his own design, and nearly tripped on a large root. Her follies would have to wait.

  The screams came faster, shorter. She couldn't tell how many, but the number was larger than three for sure, maybe even more than five. She heard the jungle and bushes behind her as she ran.

  After a few extra paces, she realized she hadn't found Lee. Her mind gave her an explanation, she definitely ran in a direction different from the one she came from. Lee wasn't ahead of her.

  “Fuck,” she breathed, trying the new word.

  Lee tackled her, nearly hitting her in the head with his weapon.

  “Oh yeah?” he asked with a smile, as he killed one of the creatures following her.

  The beast was taller than either of them, and feathered. Its wings gave way to feathered talons, and its clawed feet looked like they could slice through iron.

  A second one stopped, made a noise, and looked between Lee and its felled fellow. The oversized fowl seemed to understand that Lee killed one and had the power to do so again. It let out a different ear shattering scream as it retreated. The others made similar retreat screams in answer.

  Hayley counted nine in total.

  “Well, I’m glad you didn't die,” he said

  “I thank you. May we return to my garments?”

  “Um fu-um no. The raptors will definitely gut us. I didn't bring enough ammo for this. Didn't think I needed to.”

  Hayley didn't understand much more than his curt tone.

  “I will take my leave to die then. I never saught to upset.”

  “Ugh, no, just… Chill, okay. Forty-six minutes until return, we can—”

  He froze. He wasn't looking at Hayley, but over her shoulder.

  He moved his hand, almost imperceptibly to the weapon.

  The creature lunged, snapping the weapon in two with its large clawed foot.

  The pair ran for a minor eternity before he got around to shouting, “Run!”

  ***

  The explosion threw both of them down, hard. A feathered monster, or perhaps pieces of one, flew past them.

  Hayley's arm landed in a soft spot near a root, and only empty space existed within. She crawled, too winded and scared to speak into the crevice, and fell a man’s length down once she was in.

  Lee almost landed on top of her.

  His box glowed white and he lifted a finger to his lips. The finger was vertical, not the horizontal she knew, but the symbol and his silence was understandable. She had to be quiet.

  The box changed as he poked it, and now the white glowing face had letters, “We must be quiet,” although the font was barely legible.

  He poked again a few times.

  “Forty-three minutes.”

  She saw the letters underneath and corrected his spelling. The box protested, putting a red line beneath her word.

  He poked it again.

  “No worries. Relax and we can leave soon.”

  The creatures above began making sounds again, all at once.

  Hayley dove into his arms, not thinking of the impropriety. He held her, like a gentleman might, his hands well and clear of any uncomely places. Neither made a sound, and he extinguished the box’s glow.

  She hated the dark but found it preferable to being found by the creatures. They screamed and scratched and sniffed but never made motions like they found the pair.

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Lee poked the box.

  “Thirty-nine minutes.”

  Hayley gasped, thinking the hour nearly up.

  A talon shot down into the hole like a missile, but the creature's body was too wide to fit inside. Instead, it was now stuck slashing wildly about the tiny hidden space.

  Lee pushed Hayley down and put himself between her and the monster. He poked at the box furiously until he got it to make screeching noises. The creature heard the noise and fled.

  “Heh, nice. Dumbass dinos.”

  “Dum-tass dina-nose?” Hayley replied.

  “Shit… I mean, sorry, I’m… Well… They are dumb. I tricked it, I think.”

  “Dun-umb,” Hayley made the sounds, but she noticed even in words they shared, Lee had trouble enunciating the t’s and d’s.

  “It means, like, stupid.”

  “Ahh,” she said, a word they shared. She thought the beast intelligent, but he disagreed. They could be tricked with sounds.

  “I’m gonna say we should go before they figure it out. Sound good?”

  Lee looked at Hayley, then added, “Go back. Return. Leave.”

  “Let us leave!” she said, understanding now.

  ***

  Lee’s pack and equipment lay in a heap right where he left them. The box could be made to show a map, and he used it to find the pack.

  “Where is this jungle?” Hayley asked and he put his equipment back together. Or away. Or reorganized, she couldn't tell.

  “Right here,” he said with a mischievous smile.

  “Yes, where is ‘right here,’ like upon the globe? How far have we gone?”

  “About eighty million years”

  The answer didn't make sense. Getting frustrated as this didn't line up with the folly, she insisted. “If we came by dirigible, would it take a day, a week?”

  Lee smiled at her, a smile she hadn't seen since she was a child. The Sonsday school taught her to read, write, and perform arithmetics. The nun she had as a tot was warm and kind, and gave her that smile. That smile also meant she would assign a reading. As she got older, she was moved to the womenlings class, in which reading gave way to politeness and etiquette, for Marysson wanted them to marry, nothing else.

  Hayley didn't notice her eyes well up with tears, her hands moved toward Lee to accept a new book.

  “High five,” he said and clapped her hand.

  “What?” The trance was broken.

  “You… I just… Sorry. We have a language barrier. Your history is distorted and we have to figure out how to correct it. Columbus. Jesus fucking Christ.”

  Another swear, gee-sus-va-kint-rist.

  “Please, sir, I am already indecent, sweating from a feverish swamp, and now you swear at me like a feral lowman.”

  “Shit, shoot! Sorry. It's just not a big deal where I'm from.”

  “What awful place is Amerigo States then?”

  “Oh lort, I'm not from the you-ess. I'm from Arilon.” He paused his packing, his face made it clear that he spoke far out of turn.

  “Arilon?”

  “Uh, yeah, a far away colony. Don't repeat that, okay?”

  “A Mongol colony?”

  “No. Don't say that, it's kind of a swear where I’m from.”

  “Would your people speak their own name?”

  “No, look, they are not my people, they are the people that invaded. Your history has them defeat China before the wall is built, it's one of the deviations in the timeline. We have to map them all to fix them.”

  Hayley was missing words and the rest didn't make sense. Her history was incorrect, history was in the past, unchangeable.

  “Uh… Sorry, I don't mean to be harsh… Just stop calling me Mongol okay?”

  “Then what are you called?”

  “A spacer… Fuck!”

  Hayley let loose an accidental giggle. The word was clearly a swear but it sounded so ridiculous to her ears, like something a baby might have said.

  “Oh you like that, huh? I got a lot more.”

  “No sir!” She held her finger to her lips vertical like he did.

  “You crash my expedition and now you got the balls to shush me?”

  “Shhhh uh. Shh uh,” Hayley tried to mimic.

  “Oh come on, you don't even have shush? Or balls?”

  “A ball is a round object, typically used in sport.”

  “Okay yeah, but…”

  “So you have the same word, then made it into a swear. I have balls? Does it mean I am stupid or dumpt?”

  Lee smiled at her before looking around for more predators.

  “No, it means you have reckless courage. Sort of. Like you are a man, but in a good way.”

  Hayley thought for a moment and answered, “I don't know any men with balls.”

  They laughed together as the doorway reopened.

  ***

  Hayley sat, as instructed, while Lee went back alone to retrieve or destroy everything they left behind. The doorway snapped closed in a flash of light, and Lee checked the glowings of what looked like a large flat rectangle of obsidian and declared the professor would return soon.

  As if on cue, she heard the second bell ring.

  She stood reflexively and struggled to find the words. “Sir, if you are resolute in the notion that you would prefer me thrown to the pigs, then I must hastily take my leave.”

  He looked at her puzzled a moment, then said, “Oh wait, no you can't leave. Not now.”

  “It is already very late, being here is improper and I cannot—”

  “Yeah, no, you can't leave. Prof will be pissed if you contaminate the timeline even more.”

  “Time line? I cannot stay here.”

  “Ugh, you're not wrong. I might be able to get you back, if you can avoid yourself. Still, that's a prof problem.”

  “Prof, as in professor? You are in his employ?”

  “No, uh… We’re partners. But I'm not trying to piss him off either.” Lee looked at her, and saw her face as he swore. “Sorry! Dang!”

  Hayley's face scrunched.

  “No, no, dang isn't a swear word. It's normal.”

  “It is not normal to me and you spit it the same.”

  “Oh mah gawd, I literally cannot with you right now. My tests were incomplete and I killed like twenty fucking dinosaurs to get it. Can you please sit till he’s here?”

  Hayley thought to protest, but being attacked by bizarre jungle creatures was still better than returning to her father, to a marriage she hated.

  But she didn't have to tell him that.

  “I will speak to this professor about how ungentlemanly and crude you are. You cannot stop me,” she huffed, triumphant.

  Lee did not reply, he had already resumed various manipulations of the equipment.

  She saw large rubber tubes spread out from the doorway, many leading to a large canister. The canister was fashioned like a large spherical urchin, large enough to seat a person, or many people tightly. Its spines were a light, shiny metal and it was covered in several hundred tiny electric bulbs. Very tiny. They danced and hummed with the machine, and their motions seemed of utmost concern to Lee, and he tapped on a board covered in letters attached to his obsidian viewing slate.

  A number of rapid chimes caught Lee off guard, and he rushed between multiple pieces of equipment, whose shapes and materials perplexed Hayley. Finally, he breathed a heavy sigh, and returned to pecking on his letter board.

  “So, uh, Hayley. You got a last name?”

  She tried to discern his meaning. “My name will hopefully remain Hayley. My surname has not yet changed.”

  “Yes, that. Surname. What is it?”

  “Don’t…” She didn't know how to end that sentence. Her surname meant her father could be easily found.

  “Don’t what? I'm just making a log entry.”

  “Hayley Perelli. Of Perelli’s Shoes and Tack Emporium.”

  “Okay… Weird detail but I'll add it. So you're a blonde Italian then?”

  “Eye-tal-in?”

  “From Italy? Oh crap, it'll have another weird name. Um, the Roman Empire was there? Like Rome and Naples and uh…”

  “Romana? The empire stands tall after a thousand years.”

  “Crap, I mean, uh, yes perfect I’ll enter that. Actually…”

  He paused and Hayley leaned a bit far forward. Her dress did not return from the doorway, and without its girth and rough fiber, she slid ungracefully onto the floor.

  Lee stifled a laugh, then asked, “Sorry, are you okay?”

  “You find comedy in my injury, sir?”

  “You have got to stop with the sirs. No, I'm laughing with you?”

  “I did not laugh.”

  “Yeah, I guess you didn't. Tell me about the Roman Empire, anything about history you know.”

  “Prepare your letter board then, for I am a lady well-learned.”

  ***

  “I am far more than can be chewed!” Hayley shouted across the room at Lee.

  “That’s not how the expression goes, and I'm just saying my hands hurt from all this typing."

  “Fingering your letter board hurts you?”

  “You have got to stop,” Lee said, but the tone and the smile made her think he wanted her to continue. The library had books on romance that told of this dog and possum game. Chases and fights.

  “Fingering,” she said again, and Lee laughed worse than before.

  “I thought you were a lady, and here you are saying all this mess.”

  She couldn't understand why this would be what he called mess, improper in some fashion.

  “Fingering?” she said, the question heavy.

  Lee gave her a look, then looked down.

  “What? I do not finger anything when I make?”

  “Eww. Not what I was suggesting, but you're in the neighborhood.”

  “Neighbor, hood?” The two words did not share anything.

  “Actually, come here. There's an easier way to do this.” Lee motioned her to approach. “Oh sorry, yeah, bring the chair too.”

  Hayley paused. Lee was not a gentleman if he did not position his lady’s chair. Her father even did this for her often, including last night when he delivered the awful news.

  “I will not,” Hayley couldn't be here with a lowman, and if his culture was feral then he would be taught.

  “What?”

  “You will position my chair like a gentleman.”

  “Oh, um, okay. Weird, but okay.”

  Lee cautiously slid the chair, looking at Hayley the entire time. Hayley couldn't read this look.

  “Here ya go, have a seat,” he motioned for her to sit.

  He handed her a stick with a black bulb on the end, more grating covered its end.

  “Here, just tell me everything.”

  He fingered the letterboard and looked at her with a soft smile.

  “Well, the—” The obsidian slate produced letters matching what she spoke. “What, wait how, I’m… Stop this at once!”

  “Hey, hey, it's okay, it's just faster this way.”

  His words appeared too, without any demarcations. It had no idea which of them spoke.

  Her mind caught on, there was no magic to it or any evil purpose. It was simply a better telegraph, catching any voice and transcribing it.

  “Fine. What I recall of Romana—”

  She paused, he was looking at her again. Not like the men on the street, or the butcher and his son. But close.

  “God, you look just like her,” he said.

  “Like who?”

  “Oh shit, sorry, that wasn't for you.”

  The slate continued to transcribe their conversation.

  “Who do I look like, just? Have you trapped other girls with your fantastic doorway?”

  “No, god no. I knew a gal, we, uh, dated. A lot, I guess. It was serious."

  She knew the words but they meant different things.

  “You date-ed. Serious. Was this an Amerigo ritual for marriage?”

  “No, not Amerigo. You… Okay, close enough. Marriage isn't a big deal anymore, but yeah, we were on track.”

  She imagined the dogs of the race tracks, herself as the screaming bait as Lee and other dogs chased her for sport, and shuddered.

  “Yeah, whatever you just imagined, not that. It was nice, we lived together and—”

  “Unmarried?!”

  “Yeah, it's not a big deal. I just said that.”

  “The deal is the biggest. One's life is sold, and you simply took her without that protection?”

  Lee chuckled, “We used protection, but the whole system is different. Women are people in the future. Well, mostly.”

  “Future?”

  “You just now got that? Okay yeah, future. And I’m not here to fuck my girlfriends alt-universe great-grandma, okay?”

  Hayley covered her mouth in shock. The floor moved beneath her as if she was cast out on rough seas. She collapsed to the floor.

  “Aww shit, sorry. I didn't mean to low-man it. Can I get you anything?”

  “No. Never will I take from you lest you dare.”

  “Oh here we go. I literally just said I literally am not gonna do anything. Besides, what are you, twelve? She was an adult, all the way.” He stressed the last words in a vulgar tone.

  “Then return to her and leave me!”

  “What do you think I’m trying to fucking do lady?! Fuck!” Lee shouted, not an angry bellow like her father, but he matched the volume with some blend of sadness and desperation.

  He sat down, a few paces away.

  “I'm sorry, Hayley. I'm acting badly. I don't mean to, I'm under a lot of pressure. Prof and I want to go home, but we don't have the gear, the tech, whatever you call it. We are winging it here pretty hard. Somehow, it was easier in Sumer.”

  “Sumeria, of the good samaritan?”

  “Yes. We think we caused the split then, but we can't get back. Time is… Not a straight line.”

  “Like the curves of integration?”

  “Wait, you know math?”

  “I have studied the books on arithmetic, yes. Even the difficult ones.”

  Lee's face lit up. “Oh please tell me you've done matrix calculations?”

  “Mate-trick?”

  “Uh, muti-dimenional math?”

  Hayley shook her head, then offered, “I have performed the lattice theories.”

  Lee smiled at her again and her heart nearly took flight.

  “Yeah, that sounds about right. Show me.”

  ***

  “The universe is a sixth dimension matrix held up by an eleventh dimensional tensor field.” The screen showed a crude, nearly nonsensical diagram.

  Hayley pulled the math.

  “The ultramundus,” she smiled back at him, “has six titular folds, using L’Hopital’s threads to affirmament eleven fully-realized force lattices."

  They beamed at each other, the accomplishment shared. Math, or arithmetics, being the universal language, without regard to timeline. And a possible solution for the next test.

  “Where is your S-boat then? If you were born upon Ares?”

  “Crashed because of this,” Lee waved at the screen, its flowing diagram left running.

  “You tried to fold the third through the fourth, but overreached. You seem the kind,” she quipped, then froze for fear of reprisal.

  Lee laughed, “Yeah, you got me pegged for sure. Nailed it.”

  Marysson was nailed, and he made a joke. She pressed her wrists together and made the sign.

  “Oh no, I said another triggering thing. I didn't mean any swear, promise.”

  Hayley sighed, “No, now you blaspheme the marysson.”

  “Mother Mary, son of God?” he offered, like he had carried the words across a floor of eggshells.

  “We tell it similarly.”

  Lee had something to say, but the doorway flashed open.

  A large moorish man, dark face highlighted by graying hair bound in rows, dark arms heavy with glistening muscle, marched through the opening carrying similar equipment to what Lee had used.

  “That was a bust. Those dumbfuck savages tried to crucify me?! Tell me you had a better—”

  He stopped, and stared at Hayley who had resumed cowering in confusion on the floor.

  “What the fuck did you do?!”

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