Chapter 1

God damn, I hate flying. It just sucks to be locked in that aluminum tube with so many fucking idiots. That's not even counting the off chance the pilot or co-pilot has his head up his ass and will do something stupid that gets you killed. Of course, now'days there's always the long shot you'll be hijacked, bombed out of the air, or crashed into a building for fuck sake.

Getting to the plane is another hassle and a half. It was inevitable that the only plane going where I wanted to be left from DFW. To make matters worse, it left at nine thirty-three AM. That meant I either had to get there two and a half to three hours early or fight my way across town during the fucking morning rush. So it was _sit on my ass_ in a terminal lounge for two hours or fight rush traffic _Dallas Style_ for damned near that long.

Don't get me wrong; I love Texas - born and raised here. It's the other asshole Texans that I don't give a shit about. Not to mention the migrant Yankees that drifted down this way or the Okies and other assorted immigrants. And that's another thing, even though our soon to be gone and unlamented president has his panties in a wad over them, the illegal aliens he is always bitching about, those coming up from Mexico, are the best of the bunch.

There are three things that bother me about Okies and Yankees that come to Texas. They're just like farts. They're loud, they stink, and they won't go back where they came from. No doubt the people in Spokane would be thinking similar thoughts about me when I finally got off the damned plane to pick up my purchase.

It had taken months to find one I wanted and I felt like I'd nearly worn the Internet out doing it. At this late date there just aren't many 1931 Model A Cabriolet Coupes left, and somehow I'd come up with a jones for another one. It was the kind of car I'd learned to drive in.

The guy in Spokane claimed he had one, and that it was in excellent shape. He'd sent some great pictures, but if he was lying and got me on this plane for no good reason I'd probably wind up in jail for choking the piss out of him.

Since I hated rush traffic nearly as bad as flying, I'd opted for getting to the airport early. I'd had too much coffee while waiting, and right now I needed to piss. That wasn't the only thing making me want to get up and take a walk either. The fat woman in the window seat had cut three _silent but deadly_ farts since she'd buckled in and I was tired of smelling ham and eggs strained through her nasty ass.

As soon as we hit our traveling altitude and the seatbelt light went out I unbuckled, was up, out of my seat, and on my way to the flying pisser.

Talk about the worst fucking luck in the world, just as I went by one of the emergency exits, on my way to the john, the fucking thing blew out some how and I wasn't flying anymore. That was the only good part; the bad part - I was falling now, like fucking D B Cooper but without the parachute or the money.

Even a dumb Texan knows he's going to die when something this fucked up happens to him. Death was bad enough but why in the hell did it have to make my ears hurt so bad. I know, I know, it's the loss of pressure. Knowing what caused it didn't make it hurt any less.

The next pissoff was not enough air to catch my breath. How fucking nice was that? I wasn't even going to be able to stay conscious for the whole fall. I wondered if I'd have time to clear my head before I died, since the air would get better as I got closer to the ground.

Then I was unconscious. It happened so fast I didn't even have enough time to bitch about it.

When I woke up my first thought was to wonder why I wasn't dead. Something really odd must have happened because I was lying in a bed and it was in a small room, a small room with metal walls.

At least I'd run across something strange that I couldn't really gripe about, yet. There had to be a story in this and I was going to listen damned carefully. In fact I was suddenly anxious to find out what had happened.

When the world sticks it up your ass and breaks it off, it doesn't just stop there. Oh no, it has to wiggle the broken splinters around inside your guts. Not sixty seconds after I came to, the single door in my metal room opened and a fucking little green man came through it.

"Greetings earthling," it said, but then again it didn't.

The message was clear, but it hadn't spoken, I'd been looking right at it and its thin-lipped green mouth hadn't moved. What the hell?

"Greetings," I said, and I had the common courtesy to actually speak, moving my lips and everything.

"It isn't necessary to vocalize, unless you just want to. You can simply think when you want to communicate."

"You can read my mind?" I asked.

"Of course I can, but I don't, we don't. Thinking about what you want to say will cause the thoughts to be communicated without me having to _read your mind_ as you put it. I guess it sounds confusing but your actual thoughts and what you communicate mentally when you think about what you are about to say are completely different. It is a separate process."

"Oh," I said.

It wasn't the most intelligent comment, but what would you say? Hell, I was confused and I don't mind admitting it. Spaceman just kept looking at me, like he was waiting for me to think something to him. I gave it a shot.

"What happened?" I thought, to the spaceman, or to what I thought was a spaceman.

"We arranged for the emergency exit to open just before you passed it so that you would be expelled from the plane. We put you under, as some of you earthlings say, as you were falling and then we transported you here.

"We've given you a thorough examination and now that it is over we've let you regain consciousness."

"But why?" I asked, speaking aloud again since I forgot to just think at him.

"We need you for a type of experiment."

Uh oh, here it comes. Surely those tales aren't true. I know they hadn't gone to all this trouble to gather up subjects for anal probing.

"What kind of experiment?"

"In an alternate reality, the earth you are familiar with is at a different place in its time cycle. We intend to put you there, in what you think of as Europe. Of course Europe isn't even a gleam in its daddy's eye yet on the version of Earth that you'll be going to.

"Why?"

"We want to shake up what you think of as the Cro-Magnon man. We've been studying them and frankly they're getting a little boring." he said, or thought, or what ever he was doing.

"So you just plucked me out of an airplane that was flying perfectly well. You've used your technology to kidnap me?" I asked, the old fashioned way, with a little added volume now that I think about it.

"It isn't that simple. The door was going to come off anyway and both the pilot and copilot owned precious little talent. The plane would have crashed and you would be dead now."

"Then the plane crashed?"

"No, we didn't allow that to happen. We saved them as a sort of reward for you. With a little adjustment from us, many of the passengers are sure that you noticed the impending failure of the latch mechanism and tried valiantly to keep it from opening. They are convinced that you gave your life to save them."

"So I'm a hero, so what? How does that help me?" I asked.

"It doesn't help you directly, but we project there will be a massive law suit in your honor and that your X wife and your daughter will come out smelling like roses. It was the least we could do."

"Actually, I appreciate that. I wasn't poor or anything, but I'm sure both of them will appreciate the money. They'll probably end up with a lot more this way, since I'm the only one that died.