The cell door closed with a frightening finality. Vinci thought that he shouldn’t call it a cell since it had no resemblance to a Twenty-First Century jail cell, but the feeling was the same. He was confused as to why he was being held and hoped tomorrow would bring some enlightenment, as it did when he experienced jail in the past. It was a shock to be back home after nearly a year lost in time. He never thought he would be returning, not after everything, but even though he was never meant to travel back to 2020, he did his best to stick to the rules about time travel. He thought back to when all this began. It wasn’t supposed to happen this way, it was just a test, a simple systems test...

The first thought that went through his mind was Oh fantic, it worked!” The second thought was “Oh, fark! It worked!” It wasn’t supposed to be active, the flash of light surprised him. He mentally freaked out quite a bit when everything crashed down on him as he realized something went horribly wrong. “I’m not supposed to be here,” was another thought, followed closely with “How the fark am I going to get back?”

Vinci knew he was in trouble, he was totally unprepared to be here. He stepped away from a brick wall in the short alleyway and glanced toward the whitish hard surface separating him from the roadway just a few feet away. He saw the old-fashioned mobile autos, but then realized they weren’t old-fashioned, not just yet. He knew intellectually that was the case, but he kept looking at things from the point of view of his time, not the time he found himself in. Personal mobile autos were almost unheard of. Then he realized they weren’t mobile autos, but ‘automobiles’, “I have to remember the correct terminology!”. They were actually under the control of someone sitting in the front rather than an automated system, which struck Vinci as more than a little dangerous.

“They must have farked all over themselves when I disappeared. No briefing, no preparation, not even any of this time period’s currency. Just me, a multitool, and a simple hand-comp which was programmed for maintenance, not history. I need to think!”

That set the stage for the next several days. Vinci started looking less like the technic he was and more like a Twenty-First Century homeless person as he all but camped out next to his entry point, hoping the exit would appear. But he knew without the right equipment, they might never be able to find him for retrieval. It was a forlorn hope, but it was the only one he had.

As he looked more and more disreputable, the strangest thing happened, people walking past him started giving him money. He didn’t understand the phenomenon, but he couldn’t complain. It enabled him to eat at a small eatic around the corner from his wall. He kept thinking about his situation and realized he knew more than he thought he did about this time period. He had picked up a great deal simply by being on the periphery of the traveler briefings. He understood most of the rules.

He knew there were rules about traveling back in time, just like everything else. But unlike other rules, these were because traveling through time was dangerous, the so-called ‘Butterfly Effect’ was named after a story from an even earlier time than he found himself. No one knew how true it might be because there was no way to check and see, but everyone was afraid of changing the future, so it was the most hard and fast rule for all travelers.

The paramount rule was you could not interfere with the time stream. It always sounded counter-intuitive to Vinci, since just traveling back would have some impact. But the idea was to minimize any impact. Traveling back was for study and historical purposes, especially after the ‘Time of Troubles’ in the latter half of the Twenty-First Century. The Archeologic Institute kept time travel a secret so they could re-learn all the missing history and knowledge from the time periods before the Troubles without running the risk of changing the present. So much had been lost in the civil unrest and major conflicts of that period which made the risk worthwhile, at least to the historics and archeologics who ran the program.

Vinci did know some history, mostly leftover from his own education, so he knew he probably wouldn’t get caught in the Troubles, that wouldn’t really start for another fifty or so years in the future. Yes, much of the groundwork was laid in these decades with the election of a couple of the worst leaders in known history. If rescue never materialized, he knew he might live long enough to see it, but the odds were against it with this century’s primitive medicintic. He also knew most of the other rules, like: minimize interaction with the people of the period, use their reference places quietly, watch lots of their video transmissions and capture what you could on your hand-comp to bring back. Most of the other travelers referred to it as ‘being ghostic’, trying to be as unobtrusive as possible.

“Although I’m not sure that’s even possible for me!” Vinci thought as he compared his predicament with most travelers, who were here for one week or so at a time and their hand-comp would send a specific signal, using tech Vinci didn’t have. The tech that would let home know they were ready to come back. There was significant training and briefings on the specific periods involved, training and briefings Vinci didn’t have either — after all, he was a technic, not a historic.

Like most of the members of the Institute, Vinci had seen several post-trip-briefs and thought those people were the bravest ever. “I mean imagine traveling back to a time where you really only had your wits to guide you.” He knew not every traveler made it back, especially those who went further back in time, but most did safely, enough returned to continue the project despite the risks.

Vinci spent most of each day huddled against the wall, hoping the doorway back home would appear, but after a month, it hadn’t and he was rapidly losing hope, so he started planning for survival. He thought briefly that maybe his best bet to protect the timeline was to commit suicide, but he didn’t entertain that thought for very long. He had managed to collect a few things, including a large box to sleep in, apparently being homeless was a common enough condition that no one seemed to comment on it much. There was the occasional “Get a job!” from some of the passerby’s, but most people ignored him, except for the few that gave him some money, usually coinage, a new experience for one who had never held physical currency before. But it did mean he could eat something every day or two at that eatic.

That was when he got a lucky break. The cook of the eatic was a large fellow who also owned it, well if you listened to him, he and a bank owned it. It took Vinci a few listenings to understand what a ‘bank’ was, but he got the idea. The eatic employed several servers, a second cook for the late hours, and two that were called busboys, which confused Vinci at first because it was an eatic not a method of transportic.

But, like a trained traveler, he didn’t ask many questions, hoping not to reveal his ignorance nor make himself memorable in any way. One of the busboys got broken? Or at least that’s what Vinci thought ‘busted’ meant. No one seemed too heartbroken about it, unlike his own time when a co-worker got hurt. But in any event, Vinci saw the two servers working hard and getting behind between taking orders, delivering food, and also clearing and cleaning tables. When he realized this, he simply stood up and started helping.

He didn’t think anything of it, because that’s how things worked when he was from. You lent a hand without making a big deal about it. The servers seemed to appreciate the assistance, so he stuck around until near closing more because it was better than sitting against a brick wall and losing more hope. As the eatic closed, one of the servers pressed some money into his hands, “Thank you, we were a little short-handed.” He was tempted not to take it, but the look on her face told him to refuse would break the rules about ghosticing.

“Thank you, but I was only trying to help,” as he accepted the money with some reluctance.

“Listen, I talked to Darryl,” giving a nod toward the cook who was watching them. “Our other busboy got busted and if you want it, Darryl will let you do this every day. You’ll work for a share of the tips and it’s all under the table, but we are usually busy enough that it would not just help us, but I think to help you out as well.”

Vinci thought about it and figured being such a menial laborer wouldn’t stretch the rules too badly, although if it was ‘under-the-table’ why was she just handing him money above the table? “This place is really confusing,” he thought for about the millionth time since his arrival.

“I would appreciate that,” he finally said, and the server smiled at him, more than a perfunctory service-with-a-smile look she gave most of the customers. He realized that he hadn’t ever seen such a lovely smile, then shook himself and remembered the rules!

She held out a hand, “I’m Marley, that’s Darryl, and Katerine just left. Marco is the other busboy who works in the mornings before school. Come by about eleven tomorrow and you can work.” She nodded at the handful of bills she had given him, “you’ll easily double that each day.”

He shook her hand, “Vinci, and thanks again.”

“Vinci? I like that!” She smiled again, giving him a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach. Her smile was both sweet and oddly familiar.

The job, such as it was, enabled some welcome changes. Some were required after he was arrested for something called ‘vagrancy’. Lucking one of the servers saw him being taken away and between Katerine, Marley, and Darryl, they convinced an ajudic that he was gainfully employed at the ‘diner’, which he learned was the proper term. His night in the cell was actually more comfortable than his box, even if he shared it with several other people.

Since sitting by the wall didn’t seem to have much of a future, Vinci moved in with Marco, sharing a small flat not far from the ‘diner’. The biggest change was access to a shower, although the mechanism almost defeated him the first time he tried to activate it verbally. He and Marco got along okay, they didn’t really see much of each other most days. Marco would be up early and do mornings at the diner and then he would be off to school by the time Vinci showed up for the lunch and dinner shifts. By the time he got home most nights, Marco was already in bed. Friday and Saturday nights were overly busy, Marco would come in for some extra work. If things were slow, he would go out to a party, only he referred to it as ‘going out to party’. Vinci shook his head about how someone could be invited to a party nearly every weekend and an invitation never came in the mail. “Confusing, simply confusing,” was a constant thought.

The only time Vinci didn’t really like was after the lunch rush and before the dinner crowd, there was a lot of downtime. Which meant he, Darryl, the other cook who talked so low Vinci never got his name, and the servers had time to catch their breath and socialize while prepping for the next food rush. Which also meant getting peppered by questions mainly from an inquisitive Marley. Vinci found himself creating a fiction for himself. He tried to keep it as vague as possible, but Marley wouldn’t take vague answers and kept after him for details. Vinci came to enjoy the attention but hated the questioning. It wasn’t that Marley was really pestering him, she was simply a naturally inquisitive person.

Six months had gone by and Vinci found himself thinking less and less of where he came from and more and more where he was going, which was still so up in the air. Marco graduated and left the area and Vinci managed to keep up the rent by working more hours at the diner. It was hard work, but Darryl really liked the fact he could fix many of the things that broke. He missed using his own multitool, but if anyone saw the tool head change based on need, they might start asking more questions than he could answer. It wasn’t easy at first to remember to change tools as you worked, but he got used to it. After he repaired the stove and cooling unit a couple of times, Darryl actually paid him for it, still ‘under-the-table’ which he finally understood meant not reporting the income or paying taxes which was perfectly fine with Vinci.

One evening Marley walked with him home. Actually, she had walked with him to his home and when he realized she was going to have to walk much further for her home, he did what anyone in his time would do, he walked with her to her door. She kissed him on the cheek and he stood there for several moments after she went in. That became a ritual quite often. Each time Vinci would have to remind himself forcibly about the rules! But he couldn’t explain that to Marley.

She started showing up at his flat and they would walk to work together. One day she suggested staying with him so they could just go to work together in the morning. Vinci didn’t think anything much about it, after all, it made perfectly logical sense.

When Marley came into his small bedroom, he really was surprised! People from his time simply didn’t do that, not after the sexually transmitted diseases that had run rampant after the Troubles. It was another thing he couldn’t explain to Marley and it was more than the rules, he didn’t want her to leave. He didn’t understand the feeling, but he knew her leaving the room would be the wrong thing. As she slowly entered the room, the lights from the street were bright enough for him to realize she was naked, he was at a loss for words.