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WAYFARERS OF THE SPACE-TIME CONTINUUM: Chapter Four

Marty woke the next morning and lay in bed for several minutes staring at the ceiling and wondered if this was still part of a dream. Sunlight – at least it looked like sunlight, though Marty would have been hard pressed to locate the sun – shone through the wooden windows on both sides, and a cool breeze was circulating the room.

For about a split second or so, he wondered why he wasn't in his bedroom back home at Lyon Estates; the next split second he remembered Keith and Kenselton Hotel and wondered why this didn't look like Room 437; then everything clicked into place.

Familiar voices floated up the stairs towards him, and Marty realised with a guilty jolt that he was the last person awake. Somewhat embarrassedly, he got out from under the covers, slipped his shoes on, and headed down the stairs.

The other three were sitting at random seats around the table having breakfast. Marty joined them with a sheepish "hi," and gave the food a look-over. "Whoa. Are you sure we're allowed to eat all this?"

"No one's stopping us, are they?" Frank asked, reaching over to grab a handful of nuts. "Tuck in."

Marty hungrily complied.

"So where're we going later?" he asked, after swallowing a mouthful of some unidentified purplish mush which Ted had insisted tasted awesome. Given its unconventional colouring, Marty had to admit that said mush actually did taste quite good, though he was in no hurry to discover what it was exactly.

Neo shrugged, absent-mindedly twirling his finger around a loose string dangling from the tablecloth. "We could just follow the road," he said. "There's nowhere else we can go."

"How do we know there's anything up ahead?" Frank asked?

"The road has to lead somewhere."

"Maybe they just put a road there because it looks cool," Ted said, helping himself to more purplish mush.

"Nobody does that," Neo said, looking pointedly at the teen, only to be interrupted when his cheese waved at him. Neo blinked, staring at his now-still cheese, then decided he must have imagined the waving and ate it up.

The cheese said a cheerful hi to Neo's oesophagus and moments later met its untimely end in stomach acid.

"We could always try going back," Frank said. "At least we know there's something there."

"There's not much point in retracing our steps," Neo said. "Tom said he couldn't help us any further."

Marty bit into a small yellow fruit-like thing that tasted surprisingly sweet. "So we're going on, then?" he asked.

Ted shrugged. "Anything you want, dudes."

Frank sighed and got out of his chair. "We'd better bring some supplies along, then: food and stuff, in case we don't reach anywhere in time. I wonder if there're any bags around here we could use…" He went into the back room, which appeared to be a kitchen of sorts. Frank dug around and discovered a sole cloth bag ditched in a corner. It wasn't exactly in a very good condition and smelt faintly of onion soup, but he took it anyway and returned to the others.

"That's all they have," he announced, holding it up.

"Won't it be stealing if we just take it?" Marty asked.

Frank shrugged. "Well, the food was free… and I doubt anyone would really miss this." He paused, looking around. "How're we going to wrap up the food?"

"We could use the pillowcases," Ted suggested brightly.

"Okay, I think that would be stealing," Frank replied.

"What about water?" Neo asked.

Frank looked stressed. "Ah… Well, there're so many trees out there, there's bound to be springs or streams or other… water things… around…"

"I think there was bathroom or something upstairs," Marty said, getting up and dashing up the stairs. He found not one, but two bathrooms on the upper floor, and from their taps gushed out crystal clear water. Marty wondered where the water came from; this didn't really look like a place that had indoor plumbing. That particular matter was, however, pretty insignificant at the moment – what mattered more was how they were going to store the water, considering the noted absence of bottles or dead animal skins lying about. Marty went down and reported this.

"It's pretty obvious then," Frank said when Marty was finished talking.

"What?"

"We go back the way we came," Frank replied. "We know at least that the restaurant had food and water, probably other sorts of supplies too…"

"We were told to go this way," Neo stated matter-of-factly.

Frank folded his arms. "Got a better idea?" he asked tensely.

Neo glared at him and said nothing.

"Let's take a vote then, shall we?" Frank said, still looking at Neo. "Marty?"

Marty hesitated. "We'll go back," he said quietly after a moment's pause. "We don't know what might be ahead, so we might as well play safe…"

"Ted?"

Neo shifted his glare from Frank to the younger teen, who squirmed under his gaze.

"We go back," Ted said after a while. He gave Neo an apologetic look. "Sorry, dude."

"Three against one, Neo," Frank said. He picked up a small grape-like fruit from a bowl and chewed it. He swallowed. "Finish your breakfast, Marty, then let's get moving."

Opposite him, Neo stood up. "Ted?"

Ted looked at him, and Neo motioned the teen into the back room. When they were both in, Neo shut the door and faced him.

"Tell me your full name," Neo said.

Ted blinked. "What?"

"Just do it," Neo said with gritted teeth.

"…Theodore Logan."

"Age?"

"Fourteen?" Ted said, wondering just what the point of this was.

"Species?"

"Huh? Oh, human…"

"Actor."

Ted paused, wishing that Neo would stop glaring at him because it was making him feel very uncomfortable. "Keanu Reeves," he said softly.

Neo nodded slowly, not taking his eyes off the teen.

"Remember that," he said.

XXXXX

The road looked a lot different in the morning than it had the night before. The ever-present trees of the Nexus were ablaze with golden light on both sides of the road, and the place looked a lot less gloomy than it had the previous time. The other-worldly feeling still pervaded the air, hanging about them and intensifying briefly with each breath of wind.

With renewed energy from the night's sleep, the travellers soon arrived back on the main road and headed down the way they had come.

They reached Joe's slightly earlier than expected. Tom was sitting behind the counter with a bored expression on his face, watching the customers eat as the light played on the wooden floor. He grunted as the four travellers entered and walked u; to him.

"You again?" he asked.

"Yeah," Frank said. "Uh, any idea where we can go now?" he asked, realising the stupidity of the question only after the words had left his mouth.

"I thought I told you to follow the road left."

"Uh, yeah," Frank admitted. "But, uh, we thought we would probably need supplies and things, and this was the only place we knew of."

Tom sighed. "This restaurant is in the outskirts of the Atmena region. If you'd gone on further the way I had told you, you'd have reached the town of Fesham in less than a day. Whereas if you go the other way now, it's about a three-day walk to the next inhabited region of the Nexus. If you cut through the woods you might shave a day off the travel time, but you might have to go into some of the Otherlands for food and lodging, and there's no knowing what might happen in there…"

"We could always go back," Neo suggested.

Frank gave him a look that said he wasn't particularly interested in treading the same path for the third time. "No," he said.

"Well, I can't help you here," Tom said. "If you want anything, you'd best check out the general store back there. Tell them Tom sent you."

"Where's the store?" Frank asked.

"Go behind this restaurant, and from there you should be able to see a small bunch of buildings. The store's one of them."

XXXXX

It hadn't been clear in the night, but they saw in the morning light that Joe's was indeed not the only building around. A path from the back of the restaurant widened out into a small unpaved road that led to a cluster of buildings partly hidden by the trees, and it was down this road they decided to go, just to see what lay ahead.

It soon turned out to be a village of sorts with several people milling about the centre around which ringed about five houses. A little way nearer, a small open building proclaimed in faded paint lettering that it was the Jonke General Store. Inside, the shopkeeper sat engaged in jovial conversation with a friend.

The people regarded the four travellers with some interest.

"Now what?" Marty asked, then yelped as a churkey ran past his feet. The bird in question gave him an annoyed look, then ran over Ted's foot and disappeared into the store.

"What was that?" Marty gasped.

Frank shrugged. "Looked like a cross between a chicken and a turkey," he said. He eyed the people in the middle of the village with some discomfort. "Let's check out the store."

The shopkeeper looked up as they entered. "Hello there," he greeted cheerfully. "What can I do for you?"

The other man got up and stretched. "Well then, I'll guess I'll be leaving you to look after them," he said to the shopkeeper. "See you, Ches." He left the store, walking out into the bright outside.

"You lot new guys?" Ches asked.

"Yeah," Marty said.

"How long you been here?"

"Uh, since last night…"

"Where'd you stay?"

"There was this empty house further down the road, so we spent the night there…"

"Tom sent us here," Frank cut in, before the pointless little conversation between Marty and Ches could drag on any further. "He said you might be able to help us get provisions and stuff."

Ches looked faintly miffed at having his talk with Marty ended. "Did he? I suppose he's not far wrong there." He moved behind the counter and lifted out a box from under it. "You lot travelling together?"

"Yeah."

"All right, you can share some things then. You're going to be stuck in the Nexus for the rest of your life and then some, so you best be equipped."

The first thing Ches took out was a converter, a small circular device used to covert one's time to a usable monetary form. It was a more efficient version of the two rings that Tom had used on Ted – Ches spoke derisively of "that old model: it actually takes your memories away as well, did you know that?" – and would be needed for any financial transactions they intended to make.

The converter device contained a slot on its side where an empty plastic disc coin could be inserted in order to be filled with time. A small screen on the front of the device displayed the input or output, and the values could be adjusted by the use of buttons beneath the screen. There were two kinds of coins – the more common pre-formatted sort which could only contain the fixed amount of time printed on them, no more no less, and the blank discs which could take any amount determined by the converter. Ches gave them about fifty discs.

Next came a digital pathfinder, an electronic map-cum-compass with a wooden casing that bore more than a passing resemblance to a pocket calculator with a huge screen. The pathfinder contained a directory of the major towns and landmarks in the explored section of the Nexus; by entering in the coordinates of a place, a compass arrow appeared on the screen pointing in the direction of the requested location, with numbers under the arrow that gave you the distance in nems, a term of length roughly equivalent to six tenths of a kilometre or three-eights of a mile.

The pathfinder also included a calculator feature for the less mathematically-inclined to work out distances.

They received as well a firebox, which was essentially a cigarette-lighter with a fancy name. ("Things don't burn easily in the Nexus," Ches said, "but it's always useful to have a lighter around.")

Ches then took out a book from a shelf and passed it to them with a rather sheepish expression. On the front of the book, the title was printed clearly in bright cheery letters: 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Nexus.'

"Friend of mine wrote it," Ches said. "He got inspired by some Otherland book… I don't think too much of it myself, but I promised him I'd help sell it to newcomers. Oh, and it comes with a free towel."

The four of them stared dubiously at the towel, which was an innocent light green piece of cloth. Ches handed the book and the towel to Neo, who was standing in the unfortunate position next to him.

"Ted?" Neo asked.

"Yeah?"

Neo passed the towel to him. "You keep that."

For food, they received eight metal containers of commercially packed roast churkey meat, each with a colourful picture of a live churkey on its front and a little plastic spoon. They also got a container of de-thorned tocberries; the thorned ones were cheaper, but they were much more likely to end a consumer's life by sticking in his throat with the 'toc' sound that was its namesake.

"And you should keep the containers when you're done," Ches advised. "They might come in handy some time."

They got six filled water bottles to last them until they found another water source, and two bags to store the things in. They split the load fairly evenly – each carried two containers of churkey and one water bottle – Neo and Frank carried two; Frank slung the converter around his neck and stashed the empty coins in his bag; Marty took the Guide and the pathfinder; Ted kept the towel; Neo carried the tocberries and the cigarette lighter.

"Firebox," Ches corrected.

"It totally doesn't look like a box," Ted said.

The four of them split the cost of one month and fifteen days. Passing the converter around, they took it in turns to transfer about eleven days worth of time each into the coins, and passed them to Ches.

That settled, they set out for good into the woods of the Nexus.

- to be continued -