Cli-Fi
John J. Falco
This just barely touches upon what my book is about but it's about as good as a beginning I've been able to come up with. One which introduces my world at a leisurely pace: Any good? I've been working hard on it for a few months now.
NOTE: The bum doesn't have a name, so I had a bit of trouble trying to determine the difference between the main character and his dialogue in certain parts. Did I do that right?
Perplexed the bum looked up. The low lighting and shadows of dawn hid Bobby Hill’s face well, but the bum seemed to vaguely recall the voice from some long distant memory. He wondered if he should ask the stranger’s name, but something about the way he asked that question itched at his very core, or it could have been the lice.
The bum stuck out his tongue almost at the very mention of the concept of time. He couldn’t understand why he felt as if he was conditioned by his unconscious paranoia to loathe all things time-related, but nevertheless the very mention of time left a bad taste in his mouth. In an importune response he simply spat on Bobby’s shoes as soon as they were close enough to get spit on. Shoes, which in the bum’s mind were trying way too hard to fit in.
Jumping back into the darkness with an unexpected disgust Bobby scoffed, “What did I say?” The bum stared blankly at Bobby’s excitement and determined entitlement. He then finished what he was writing got up and leaned just outside the doorway. The curves of which seemed to form like a large upside down and inverted vase highlighted by a cool blue hue.
“Blasphemous!” The bum simply muttered. “You who dares to cross The Constant; your kind is not welcomed here!”
“Why do you say that?” Bobby asked moving closer, again. The bum jerked his head and took a quick glance into the darkness of the corporate office from which he was barred. His light pink knuckles turned pale from the tight grip he maintained on the door frame.
The moving silhouette flickered in the shadows but as the figure got closer it felt like something that was there, but shouldn’t be, and he had an idea of what or rather who it was. It was then that he fully realized the implications of this entire conversation. How it went against all he was taught.
Bobby Hill walked closer to the bum and as his face emerged from the darkness illuminated by the blue, the shadows seemed to wash over him. Revealing his true nature. He felt oddly comforted but naked and exposed in the morning sunlight.
The bum stared at Bobby Hill now fully understanding who he was. His body tensed and he felt his pulse skyrocket. It seemed to be the face of a kind wise old man with many deep dark wrinkly valleys, a dark grey bushy beard, and a receding hairline, but in this day age faces didn’t mean anything. It was the soul that mattered and in the bum's mind, Bobby Hill’s soul was as black as his skin. The bum had heard the stories of what the man in front of him was capable of. He desperately searched for somewhere to run to and hide.
Keenly aware of the social and economic impacts time travel has had on later post-exposed timelines, Bobby dared to ask the unwilling participant who seemed too shocked to be talking to him, “Does it bother you?” He asked of this story’s subject matter. Unfortunately that question was not helpful in anyway.
The bum lifted a finger and just pointed at him. The long dirty fingernails peeking out of his brownish and dusty gloves gave Bobby worry. Hopefully he could find more civilized people to talk to, and soon. “You should know. You won’t find an answer you’ll like if you continue to ask away in that manner.” The bum said with an uneasy crackling voice.
Now we are getting somewhere, at least Bobby thought so. The bum wasn’t giving any hints as to what he meant but Bobby didn’t really want to keep talking to him. There would be little point or reward in the effort. He was still a little disoriented from his recent trip back and just wanted to rest. Bobby shrugged, “It’s a perfectly legal thing to ask. My Chronometer’s all out.”
The bum simply gasped at the mention of the device. With his right shoulder still pressed up against one of the doorway's curves, the bum folded his arms, stared at Bobby’s glowing right wrist, and shook his head. “Your type never seem to learn. You can’t go around messing everything up and expect things to go your way all the time.” The bum shook his head, disappointed in the fact that time travel was still a necessary way of life.
Bobby shook his wrist, the light indicated his temporal stabilizers were still getting recalibrated. “What are you talking about?” Bobby was struck by the bum’s utter lack of knowledge on the subject that he was supposed to be good at guarding. Was the Consortium so low on bodies these days that they were just hiring anybody they could find?
The thought echoed in the back of his mind and for a split second he figured it might be a clue as to what the hell was going on now. He had been gone too long. He felt the sense of change in the atmosphere and based on his welcome home party a change he so far did not like. Perhaps someone more welcoming would care to explain it all, later.
He should be home, but from the looks of the rest of the outside world, it didn’t seem like the Earth-Prime he knew and loved. Yet the odd thing was, was that the stabilizers placed him there. Perhaps his calculations were way off, and he was in some far off year. Though even that didn’t make sense. Bobby Hill doesn’t make mistakes, he thought to himself.
Usually a time traveler could automatically detect what the official date was after a jump. This was due to temporal processors embedded in the wrist which were directly connected to the higher functions of the brain. A luxury early chrononauts did not have.
As he walked past the bum the sudden feeling of the brisk air let him know he was solid once again and his wrist stopped glowing. He noticed an old rusty tin can on the sidewalk besides the cardboard sign on the floor. There, sprawled across it in big bold black letters was a definitive political slogan. One Bobby never thought would have been possible. It read, “Legalize History!”
The tin can was empty and so Bobby flicked a rather insignificant coin he had received somewhere along in his travels into it. The bum did not look pleased. As if accepting money from a time traveler was timist or at the very least, hypocritical! Looking back up at the bum, he asked him, “Care to explain that sign?”
The bum huffed, and shook his head grunting like a wild animal. Suddenly as if he heard something coming for him in the distance, the bum dashed for the sign, grabbed the tin can, and limped down the street.
“Thanks for the enlightening conversation!” Bobby Hill yelled sarcastically down the road. The whole entire experience left him in an odd state of remembrance. He was home, but something definitely wasn’t right. Legalize History? What was up with that?
Earth-Prime has the most detailed reports of every possible outcome of any historical event ever! He was a major part of all that research. Bobby wondered why the bum even wrote the sign. Could he have been suffering from some temporal PTSD from another timeline? There were too many questions and nobody left to answer them. He probably shouldn’t have asked for the time again.
He shrugged as he looked up at the sky. The clouds above were churning fast and seemed to flow in and out of the seemingly abandoned massive skyscrapers of whatever city he was in. The sun now only peeking in and out in various spots. Specks of drizzling raindrops hit the roofs of the smaller rundown boarded up buildings. They looked like they would crumble if you kicked them.
Long rows of moss ran from the young low-hanging trees and into the various cracks into the bricks. It was as if no one had lived in any of those buildings for quite some time. Bobby kicked at the ground and a chunk of the sidewalk came loose and flew down the road. “Where am I?” He said aloud, almost hoping someone would answer back.
There was nothing wrong with the way the city looked. The towers had been abandoned long ago.
Walking onwards, he remembered that today was the last day of his tenure as head of the Temporal Academy.
NOTE: The bum doesn't have a name, so I had a bit of trouble trying to determine the difference between the main character and his dialogue in certain parts. Did I do that right?
Chapter One: Legalize History
“Excuse me sir, but what time is it?” Bobby Hill shook his head regretting the question. The man who was sitting outside on the sidewalk nearby, was nothing but a bum. Dressed in a bum-like manner with dusty old unwashed clothes and doodling on a piece of cardboard. He was not deserving of such a title. In his head he cursed his traditional and polite upbringing. He waited for the man to get offended.Perplexed the bum looked up. The low lighting and shadows of dawn hid Bobby Hill’s face well, but the bum seemed to vaguely recall the voice from some long distant memory. He wondered if he should ask the stranger’s name, but something about the way he asked that question itched at his very core, or it could have been the lice.
The bum stuck out his tongue almost at the very mention of the concept of time. He couldn’t understand why he felt as if he was conditioned by his unconscious paranoia to loathe all things time-related, but nevertheless the very mention of time left a bad taste in his mouth. In an importune response he simply spat on Bobby’s shoes as soon as they were close enough to get spit on. Shoes, which in the bum’s mind were trying way too hard to fit in.
Jumping back into the darkness with an unexpected disgust Bobby scoffed, “What did I say?” The bum stared blankly at Bobby’s excitement and determined entitlement. He then finished what he was writing got up and leaned just outside the doorway. The curves of which seemed to form like a large upside down and inverted vase highlighted by a cool blue hue.
“Blasphemous!” The bum simply muttered. “You who dares to cross The Constant; your kind is not welcomed here!”
“Why do you say that?” Bobby asked moving closer, again. The bum jerked his head and took a quick glance into the darkness of the corporate office from which he was barred. His light pink knuckles turned pale from the tight grip he maintained on the door frame.
The moving silhouette flickered in the shadows but as the figure got closer it felt like something that was there, but shouldn’t be, and he had an idea of what or rather who it was. It was then that he fully realized the implications of this entire conversation. How it went against all he was taught.
Bobby Hill walked closer to the bum and as his face emerged from the darkness illuminated by the blue, the shadows seemed to wash over him. Revealing his true nature. He felt oddly comforted but naked and exposed in the morning sunlight.
The bum stared at Bobby Hill now fully understanding who he was. His body tensed and he felt his pulse skyrocket. It seemed to be the face of a kind wise old man with many deep dark wrinkly valleys, a dark grey bushy beard, and a receding hairline, but in this day age faces didn’t mean anything. It was the soul that mattered and in the bum's mind, Bobby Hill’s soul was as black as his skin. The bum had heard the stories of what the man in front of him was capable of. He desperately searched for somewhere to run to and hide.
Keenly aware of the social and economic impacts time travel has had on later post-exposed timelines, Bobby dared to ask the unwilling participant who seemed too shocked to be talking to him, “Does it bother you?” He asked of this story’s subject matter. Unfortunately that question was not helpful in anyway.
The bum lifted a finger and just pointed at him. The long dirty fingernails peeking out of his brownish and dusty gloves gave Bobby worry. Hopefully he could find more civilized people to talk to, and soon. “You should know. You won’t find an answer you’ll like if you continue to ask away in that manner.” The bum said with an uneasy crackling voice.
Now we are getting somewhere, at least Bobby thought so. The bum wasn’t giving any hints as to what he meant but Bobby didn’t really want to keep talking to him. There would be little point or reward in the effort. He was still a little disoriented from his recent trip back and just wanted to rest. Bobby shrugged, “It’s a perfectly legal thing to ask. My Chronometer’s all out.”
The bum simply gasped at the mention of the device. With his right shoulder still pressed up against one of the doorway's curves, the bum folded his arms, stared at Bobby’s glowing right wrist, and shook his head. “Your type never seem to learn. You can’t go around messing everything up and expect things to go your way all the time.” The bum shook his head, disappointed in the fact that time travel was still a necessary way of life.
Bobby shook his wrist, the light indicated his temporal stabilizers were still getting recalibrated. “What are you talking about?” Bobby was struck by the bum’s utter lack of knowledge on the subject that he was supposed to be good at guarding. Was the Consortium so low on bodies these days that they were just hiring anybody they could find?
The thought echoed in the back of his mind and for a split second he figured it might be a clue as to what the hell was going on now. He had been gone too long. He felt the sense of change in the atmosphere and based on his welcome home party a change he so far did not like. Perhaps someone more welcoming would care to explain it all, later.
He should be home, but from the looks of the rest of the outside world, it didn’t seem like the Earth-Prime he knew and loved. Yet the odd thing was, was that the stabilizers placed him there. Perhaps his calculations were way off, and he was in some far off year. Though even that didn’t make sense. Bobby Hill doesn’t make mistakes, he thought to himself.
Usually a time traveler could automatically detect what the official date was after a jump. This was due to temporal processors embedded in the wrist which were directly connected to the higher functions of the brain. A luxury early chrononauts did not have.
As he walked past the bum the sudden feeling of the brisk air let him know he was solid once again and his wrist stopped glowing. He noticed an old rusty tin can on the sidewalk besides the cardboard sign on the floor. There, sprawled across it in big bold black letters was a definitive political slogan. One Bobby never thought would have been possible. It read, “Legalize History!”
The tin can was empty and so Bobby flicked a rather insignificant coin he had received somewhere along in his travels into it. The bum did not look pleased. As if accepting money from a time traveler was timist or at the very least, hypocritical! Looking back up at the bum, he asked him, “Care to explain that sign?”
The bum huffed, and shook his head grunting like a wild animal. Suddenly as if he heard something coming for him in the distance, the bum dashed for the sign, grabbed the tin can, and limped down the street.
“Thanks for the enlightening conversation!” Bobby Hill yelled sarcastically down the road. The whole entire experience left him in an odd state of remembrance. He was home, but something definitely wasn’t right. Legalize History? What was up with that?
Earth-Prime has the most detailed reports of every possible outcome of any historical event ever! He was a major part of all that research. Bobby wondered why the bum even wrote the sign. Could he have been suffering from some temporal PTSD from another timeline? There were too many questions and nobody left to answer them. He probably shouldn’t have asked for the time again.
He shrugged as he looked up at the sky. The clouds above were churning fast and seemed to flow in and out of the seemingly abandoned massive skyscrapers of whatever city he was in. The sun now only peeking in and out in various spots. Specks of drizzling raindrops hit the roofs of the smaller rundown boarded up buildings. They looked like they would crumble if you kicked them.
Long rows of moss ran from the young low-hanging trees and into the various cracks into the bricks. It was as if no one had lived in any of those buildings for quite some time. Bobby kicked at the ground and a chunk of the sidewalk came loose and flew down the road. “Where am I?” He said aloud, almost hoping someone would answer back.
There was nothing wrong with the way the city looked. The towers had been abandoned long ago.
Walking onwards, he remembered that today was the last day of his tenure as head of the Temporal Academy.
