Author's Note: Thank you to all who reviewed the last chapter. Normally I try to reply to you all individually, but somehow this week got away from me and I had a lot going on between work and my Smol and NaNoWriMo. My sincere apologies and I shall be more attentive going forward!
13. Stevie's Modern Life
Bucky,
I thought aliens were the weirdest thing I'd ever encounter in the future-I mean present. It's not.
One word: Internet.
Maria and Natasha came over earlier. 1940s me kept thinking, "Wow, I have two women in my apartment!" while present-day me kept trying to shut that guy up. Natasha is full-time with SHIELD and deploys with their STRIKE team, so we'll be pairing up fairly often. And I know Maria will report directly to Fury; I think she's taken Coulson's place. We didn't talk about Phil. I didn't ask Maria about his cards, though I wanted to.
Instead, they brought pizza and a twelve pack of beer and started teaching me how to use a computer. I caught on pretty quickly, as the setup they have in my apartment is pretty intuitive. People don't need to write things down in notebooks anymore. They don't have to type, and worry about having correction tape, or running out of paper when they mess up and have to start a page over again. The worst was the time my senior year English teacher made us write research papers with footnotes, and I kept messing up and not having enough space. My mom gave me the money to go get more paper and another ribbon for the typewriter. When I finally finished my essay a few days later, I realized she hadn't gone to get her medicine at the pharmacy and when I asked why she just smiled and said not to worry about it. My mom sacrificed her health for those damn footnotes.
People can use computers to do art now, too, and maybe if I have some downtime someday I'll try it. Though I really would prefer a good set of pencils and a nice heavy sketchbook. I mentioned it casually and Maria said, "Pencils and sketchbook" into her phone (which is this slim rectangular thing that looks nothing like a phone) and went back to eating pizza and drinking beer and telling me how to use a computer.
Finally it was time for the internet. I didn't know much about Natasha before this. I still don't really know much about her. She has a way of deflecting questions, smiling, turning it back on you. I think she now knows more about me than I'll ever know about her. For a while it also sounded like she was speaking another language: firewall, malware, modem, proxy server, search engine…
The internet is like having every single library on earth accessible to you at any time of day or night. It's every phone book on the planet in one. It's history and it's the future. It's a way to find people. It's a way to see the world, and even space. It's incredible.
Did you know people play games of chess and cards across the ocean? That Siam is now Thailand, and that if I ordered the Star Wars boxed set (another thing I apparently must catch up on) I can get it within a day if I sign up for Prime? Did you know I can get the complete first edition set of Captain America comics in near-mint condition, but only if I outbid some guy in Omaha, Nebraska within the next fifty-three seconds?
It's also scary. Especially after Natasha was pretty well satisfied that I knew what I was doing. She and Maria were getting ready to leave when she told me, "Rogers. Don't Google yourself, whatever you do."
I wasn't sure if she was serious, so later on when I couldn't sleep I Googled myself.
Bucky.
BUCKY.
Do you know what people thought we were up to during the war?
Anyway. My phone isn't a rotary. Those have been out of use for two and a half decades at least. I have a landline but it doesn't ring. The thin thing in my pocket, which can also access the entirety of the internet at any time of day or night, rings constantly. TV exists. It's also in color, and it seems like this thing called "reality TV", which isn't real at all, is big. I thought maybe the History Channel might be familiar, but there was just some guy talking about aliens. SHIELD must be monitoring my TV or something, because Maria sent me a message on my phone (why couldn't she just call?) to try the classic movie channel. Even some of those were after my time, but there was something comforting about the clothes and music and the way they talked. Some were even in black and white.
The grocery store is… well it's not the corner markets where we used to go pick up our canned goods. Perhaps most interesting of all is that first, I can get frozen meals that can be ready to eat in five minutes or less (very convenient) and second, there's nearly any and every fruit/vegetable you could think of: out of season or not. Foreign or local. It's overwhelming and I'm not even sure where to start. You and I, we were never really good chefs, and your mom ended up making sure we were properly fed.
Everywhere I go people are staring at screens, or listening to something only they can hear with these tiny buds in their ears. Someone asked if they could take a "selfie" with me while I was waiting in line at the checkout. I didn't even have a chance to ask what a "selfie" was before she flipped her phone around, leaned in and smiled, and this flash went off. For a moment all I could think of was the Hydra weapons going off and my heart pounded but then she giggled and ran off. I have no real idea of what happened.
Turns out I can use the internet to research history, but I have to be careful. I have so much to read up on, and one thing leads to another. It's easy to get sucked in and when I look up from the screen, it's dawn. This is contemporary life. Coffee and glowing screens. I mean, in the grand scheme of things I guess no polio is good, and the internet has been really helpful. Maybe I can hack this modern life thing.
So long as I never Google myself again.
Don't Google yourself either,
Steve
PS:, no I didn't Google you. I know what happened to you better than any search engine could.
PPS: look at me using the jargon. Natasha will be proud of me.