Aneeza hated her first day of work.
She had to learn what 'coffee' was, and 'tea' and to make things worse, they also had particular requirements on each cup- sugar, no sugar, and sometimes different 'kinds' of sugar. There was also the annoying look they always gave her, knowing that she flew around the place with her little tray along all the rows of desks, not to mention some of them tried to look under her skirt-
Damn it didn't anyone here know who she used to be?
... actually thinking about it, that was probably a good thing.
Anneza was quickly ushered into a room, and quickly told a few things in that weird language.
"Six people here! Six!" said one of the managers.
"S..s..six?"
The man then held out his fingers. "This many. We have an important meeting here. Also biscuits."
Anneza looked blankly a moment then nodded. Okay so she had to make six cups of tea. That should be easy enough. Maybe also leave the kettle here in case anyone wanted more. A quiet voice inside her was telling her how degrading this all was. But at least she wasn't at home doing nothing. (Worse- her parent's home doing nothing.)
As always when it came to the language barrier, people tended to not talk to her or try not to. It made it even harder to learn their language. How was she supposed to make any progress? Whoever said this kind of work would be character building she wanted to throw into the sun. It was hard, it was horrible, and incredibly demeaning.
"Just persevere Anneza... who knows. Maybe something will turn up?"
Sider smiled at the latest strange machine he made. Sure he didn't really know where all this new found knowledge came from, nor why he was 'compelled' to make such things. But compelled he was, and his wondererous creation stood proudly in front of his eyes.
Lucas watched getting just a little impatient. "Sider, I know your inventions can be a little crazy, but are you seriously telling me you can make some sort of time machine?"
"No of course not. Mechanical Time travel isn't real. That's just in the movies."
"Oh..." Now Lucas was even more confused.
"I can't explain it to you exactly but you can't go to the past unless you already did. That's causality. What we can do is send 'little things'."
"Well then can you explain how I got this note from myself asking me to give Jeff these instructions?"
"Obviously because I'm about to let you send this letter to yourself. We best do it before the government finds out and shuts us down. Otherwise we could have a major paradox on our hands."
Lucas had written the letter to herself, and placed it within the walls of the strange machine. The angel expected Sider to quickly pull a leaver or something, but no. It just disappeared and was gone.
"Ah! causality maintained. It's almost beautiful really," smiled the mad scientist. "By the way. You will sort out my electricity bill for this, right?"
"Yeah... about that... I might have something in my robe- oh just one thing. 'Who' gave me the idea to do this?"
"For someone doing stuff like doctor who you don't know a lot about time. There is no origin to this information. It just happened. We are our own starting point and end point. Actually, if I got this right, the loop is probably something spanning multiple generations, and there are quite a few people involved. But the fact that we are all here must mean we are in a stable loop-"
"Argh!" Lucas shouted. "Stop Sider please. I'm getting a major headache. Maybe the feds are right to ban time travel." Lucas couldn't believe he thought that!
"It isn't time travel! You arn't going into the past. Just sending notes. Information. information that was already sent. So no harm in it."
"Why don't you use it to get the lottery numbers?" Asked Lucas in thought.
"Can't. Cause I never did. Every attempt I would make would probably fail. Eh, 'probably'. Cause now you're going into some weird realms of physics and I really have to work on this next bit-" At this point a speaker on time note machine activated with a crisp feminine voice.
-Hello. Welcome to the Fairy Mail Network. Processing your IP and Time Reference... complete. Please enter your user name and Time-Password.-
Sider glanced at Lucas and looked very confused.
"Er... what's that?" asked Lucas.
"I have no idea," said Sider genuinely surprised. "The apparatus seems to have logged into a... network of some sort. It's downloaded an entire program and executing it. I've been hacked! I- think?" But it was probably the most polite hack he had ever encountered. It made no sense!
Warning. thirty seconds remaining. Failure to enter password will result in destruction of this illegal time manipulation device, and possible visitation.
"Eh... Cider? what's going on?" Lucas asked as a very strange hum started to build on the machine.
Cider turned a few dials. "I don't know! It's sending some kind of energy to the weird material I found. I guess the future must really not like what we're doing!"
"Shut it down!" Lucas demanded.
"I'm trying! It won't let me!"
Failure to log on. This time device has been logged as an illegal system.
As the thirty seconds went by the machine 'imploded' in a haze of blue light.
"Nooo! My machine!" Cider said aghast. "It was a thing of beauty!"
"Well, at least you got enough out of it to do what we already did." Lucas felt she was starting to get an idea of how time travel worked.
Jeff ran home. Sunlight would be soon, but he now knew he had enough time. All he had to do was get home, and none of this would have happened. he had a spring in his step. This would be easy!
He had just turned a corner when he saw yet another of those weird advertised signs of the strange watchmaker from his dreams. He seemed to be 'pointing' somewhere. It also had a message. 'Don't look if you want things to be as they were.' Strange slogans indeed...
Jeff thought 'looking' would cause no harm though. He decided to gaze at the direction, and saw- to his absolute horror, a huge truck about to hit some skunk-woman. The truck was driving completely the wrong way of the one way road!
Jeff tensed but reacted completely on instinct. He ran out in front and pushed the woman out of the way.
Jeff felt himself get hit instead.
It... it hurt a lot.
He saw the skunk woman looking over, and a strange fox like creature. He wanted to get away from these freaks, but he was in too much pain.
Samuel was staring at Jeff. "He looks so much like the Sheriff," he said. "Keep him warm. We got to get an ambulance."
"I didn't see that truck! They aren't supposed to go that way! He saved me," said Erica sadly.
Samuel nodded but was not overly worried. "Sunrise is about to come up. It should heal him."
"N-No..." Jeff whispered. "No s-sun... N...o... sun..."
"We have no choice! You might have internal injuries." Samuel said trying to stay calm.
"I know it will be scary," said Erica. "But we're here. We'll... keep you company."
Jeff wanted to cry. Maybe the ambulance would get here before the sun hit him...
But no...
The sunlight did hit him...
Jeff woke up, feeling no more pain at all. He gazed down expecting the absolute worse. But... actually, he looked completely the same as he did before. His clothes seemed to be the same, as the strange lights of the sun cascaded on his features. His body had been healed, and otherwise untouched.
Erica and Samuel also looked at him with curious confusion. "Are... you okay?" asked the skunk woman.
"Yes... I..." He coughed a bit at the slightly high pitch of his voice. Clearly the result of stress. "I'm fine. I don't feel any different." Did he just win another lottery?
Suddenly one of those strange holes appeared above them. Erica recognised it as a time portal from her adventures in the west. What she didn't expect though was to see a small fairy girl.
"Fairy mail delivery!" said the girl. "I have a letter for Samuel, one for Erica, and one for Je- er Jeff." She said a little tensely.
"You mean ferry mail?" asked Erica thinking.
"No, Fairy mail. We send it any time, anywhere you want. Just sign here please... This is about as far back as we're allowed to send things. Someone must have spent a fortune! It's charged by the letter."
Each person took their letter as the fairy girl disappeared.
"She looked a lot like-"
"Yeah, she did," said Erica. She was in a way rather glad... she didn't know where Kimi ended up but it looked like she was kept rather busy.
Jeff stood up, still looking over himself. He opened his letter up.
"To Jeff. You didn't listen to me last time but I will say it again. Trust Ricky with your secret. She will help you. Also, accept and live happily as I have... finally, they are called proto fairies."
The young teen looked very perplexed at that. He had no secret! Also... what was a proto-fairy?
"What's your's say?" Asked Samuel to Erica.
"Just one word. Er... Twins?" she said confused. "Does.. that mean...?"
Samuel just grinned. "Ho boy! What's mine say?" he wondered as he opened up the letter. "Oh God... it's from Ironhand?"
"But... he died?" he asked Erica. Samuel was always blown over by the death of his mentor.
*Dear Samuel.
It's cheaper to send things into the future, then the past, so I have a lot I want to say to you. First of all, I am alive and well though very old now. It took a long time to remember who I used to be, living the life I have had. I heard you found your girl, so I offer my sincere congratulations. I am sorry I could not be there for your wedding. You are like a son to me, and this letter is probably the only thing you'll have of me now.*
Samuel blinked a few tears as Erica and him read the letter.
I have lived and had many children, who fortunately did not inherent my rather more 'exotic' features as I grew up and kept hidden. Perhaps because it just was not the right time. The man before you is Jeff Aurelius, one of many of my direct descendents and the one intwined into your lives and those of your own decendents too. He is like family to me Samuel, so please take care of him as you would any of my lost relatives. God bless you Samuel, my son at heart. You've become a fine man and I am proud of you.
Samuel was so overcome that he started to cry. He then looked at Jeff again. "So... you're my old mentors descendent? Does the name iron-hand ring any bell?
"Eh.. no. But I did have a relative called Velvet-glove from the old days. We couldn't trace where her family came from though."
Samuel blinked. "Iron hand... you had one weird life."
