Communism Without Coffee
Copyright© 2026 by A duck named TEF
Chapter 1
’The hell did I do?’ Heavy breathing. Fast footfalls down the wet cobble stone pathway. ’The hell did I do?!’ The sounds of two uniformed officials in pursuit of the man can be heard. ’What the actual fucking gawddamned hell did I manage to fuck up this catastrophically?!!’
Two weeks earlier...
“Denny, we need you to go to 9th century Ethiopia. There’s a rebellion of sorts among some goat-herders, or ... gang turf war or god-knows-what, I was just told to let you know that you’ve got new orders. Boss-man’s got the details my dude.” Georgia, Mr. Goldstiens secretary caught the man as he was just getting to his desk.
Denver, the only name he was known by, casually twisted his way around the young woman on his way to his desk. “Can it wait until I write up my report? I’ve got a great line about the Nazi’s I cleverly outsmarted.” His boyish grin didn’t have the effect on the woman that he hoped for. “Your stare could freeze the damned sun, y’know that? They could have used you in the great New York burning.”
Georgia raised an eyebrow, she knew better by now not to question the eccentricities of Denver. He had lived through a dozen different timelines, a plethora of different histories. Well, he had caused differing timelines.
Denver was what the organization referred to as a ‘Grand Traveler’. That is to say he could travel backward and forward through time in order to fix the flow of history that time would otherwise use cataclysms to correct.
He always returned to his fixed timeline after each journey, back to the organization that quite literally ran the known world from the shadows. This position was inherited to him through his mothers bloodline.
She had been the first grand traveler, before her were the ‘lesser’ travelers, they could only travel in one direction, and typically only once. Few known lessers had been able to go to the future by only three months at most.
Denver’s mother had gone millennia into the future on her first journey. It was an anomaly as she wasn’t even born of a known privileged bloodline.
In this far reached future is where she learned of her ability, of the six privileged bloodlines, and the truths of who ran the world. This place she referred to as the shining future, but it had to be destroyed due to gross abuse of power and perversion of justice.
So the story went anyway.
When she journeyed again it was millennia into the past of her fixed point in time. This was before she was able to fully understand and control her ability.
So far from her fixed point she established the organization, structuring it in a way to maintain the best outcome for humanity, and to completely eliminate any possibility of the shining future.
She managed to find the founding patriarchs of the six privileged bloodlines and create the bonds between them far earlier than in the timeline leading to the shining future, and so far the organization was doing well.
Out of all her children, Denver was the only one who inherited his mother’s ability. One of the six privileged bloodlines had travelers among their family tree, but never a Grand Traveler, and that line had gone extinct thirty years before Denver was born.
“Mr. Goldstien is waiting, you can complete your report on space dino-nazis and killer clowns after you receive your new mission.” with that Georgia left the doorway and headed back to her own desk to do more filing, or organization.
What all she did there Denver didn’t know, nor did he really care. He thought of her as a cold self-serving young woman with the old soul of a drill sergeant. He did however admire her no-nonsense tenacity to get the job done.
With a heavy sigh Denver rubbed his forehead and looked at the picture of his mother and father on his desk, the only picture he had as she had met his father back in the Victorian 1800’s.
His father was an underground boxer and his mother had been posing as a whore to find and stop a Jack-the -Ripper copy-cat who would have been far more prolific than the real Jack.
The man had managed to save his mother from a run-away horse buggy, and the two started to spend a lot of time together.
“You always went for the odd-ball types I’m told. It’s too bad dad passed from the complications of all those concussions. If only the doctors of the time were better equipped.” Denver didn’t know what his mother agonized over more, knowing exactly what was wrong with the man she loved, or not being able to do anything about it and watching him decline.
That was one of the many draw-backs of time travel. One, having so many cultural references that no one else understood, and two, knowing about future advances that couldn’t be accessed when seemingly most beneficial.
Denver had seen it in other travelers that were forced to take the slow path back from their first journey, travelers he observed from afar to better control his own ability.
Knowing things they couldn’t talk about, watching those they got close to suffer from simple things they could fix but time would reverse in some way. It was dubbed ‘Travelers Madness’ and it did ultimately destroy his mother.
He finally pushed off the desk he had been leaning on and made his way to Mr. Goldstien’s office.
The mahogany doors squealed in protest, something that hadn’t been happening before his latest journey. Probably one of the little nuance changes that tend to pop up every time Denver came back.
Little things usually changed, once it was a switch in names of twins he worked with, John was named Reginald, and Reginald was thus John, or they were playing a long-term elaborate prank on him. He could see that happening too.
With his mind on the topic of names, he noticed now that Georgia had called him ‘Denny’. She never called him by the office nick-name. ’I certainly hope we aren’t sleeping together... ‘
“Denver!” Mr. Goldstien always managed to sound like a giant despite only being 5’2”. Perhaps it was in-part to his authoritative and commanding nature.
He was born of the oldest of the privileged bloodlines, the one that seemed to remain relatively pure and somehow hardy against the deformities and genetic degradation caused by centuries of inbreeding from the past, during the golden ages of oligarchies and arranged marriages.
His line was still easily traced to several Germanic, Nordic, and various other European royal lines. There was a rumor even that he had direct lineage from Genghis Khan.
All hearsay according to him. One of the other bloodlines was more related to the Asian side, no Asiatic lineage in him.