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 smiled a bit at the idea that of all the people, it was down to him. Could it really mean that he could help everyone? Everyone would turn back, as if... none of this ever happened? He half wondered if the angel was lying, but she seemed so sincere. It would mean he could get Belle back as she was!
Jeff glanced up at the darkness. Sunrise was probably fifteen minutes or so away. He had lost some track of time, but his house was not far at all from here. The early mornings were always a weird sort of twilight time. Half the population wide awake, the other half sleeping... Jeff was certainly among the tired now. He shook his head of fatigue and kept going.
"Just do nothing and go home," he repeated to himself. That should be eas-
Jeff suddenly felt something strange. It was a feeling of... not of himself being watched, but of someone he should know watching someone else? It was similar to... to when he was in the parking lot.
The teen gasped at what he saw. It was... it was the man who had stolen his car. He never saw his face, nor much of the incident but his instincts were telling him it was this man. He was standing at a bus stop, obviously a little worried to get home too.
"How could it be him? The police have him in custody..." That was, unless... unless he ditched the car and gave it to a friend? Jeff wanted to call the cops- until he remembered. No... he had to not do anything. The man hasn't seen him, there was nothing he could do... he had to leav-
But then... he saw a strange skunk girl wait at the bus stop too. She seemed a bit nervous and Jeff couldn't help but think the strange teenager was rather pretty- in an exotic kind of way, with that long white striped tail flicking nervously.
"No..." thought Jeff. The skunk girl was opening her purse, and admiring some kind of fancy ring. She was quite discreet about it, but Jeff recognised the other man had noticed it. He also noticed... he was going to go for it.
The man was reaching into his pocket...
Jeff reacted completely on instinct. He ran up to him. "Leave her alone!" he shouted.
The man looked at Jeff with a state of shock, and the outburst made Erica drop her ring on the ground.
The thief didn't say anything, but just dived for the ring. Jeff however tried to grab hold of him. "Call the cops lady!" he shouted to Erica. But he felt something strange. something numbing on his lower body. He felt he could taste...blood? Still he fought and grappled the man.
Erica nervously tried to reach for her cellphone, but was in a panic. She had never felt anything like this before. She had always known she was weaker in this body- but her body was already about to release it's horrific stench reacting to that fear. She crouched down and sprayed the man, being careful not to hit Jeff.
The thief cried out suddenly, and ran like absolute hell as the horrific stench permeated into his skin.
Jeff covered his nose... and collapsed. He felt weak... so weak, and it wasn't just the smell.
"Are.. are you okay?" Erica asked suddenly very guilty. "I didn't mean to-" But then she saw the blood. Jeff was... was bleeding. "D-Don't move. I'll call an ambulance!"
"What happened?" Asked a fox man who ran across the street. "Erica? God! What in the hells happened-" then he saw the young boy bleeding. "Hey... he... looks just like the sheriff." He remarked to himself. How weird was that? It looked like the kid was stabbed too. Damn it! He tried to cover his wounds.
Jeff looked up at the sky, as it started to lighten. He gave a weak smile. "Your.. ring... It.. fell on... the road."
Erica quickly went to pick up the ring. "Don't worry about the ring! Just stay with us. T-Thank you. He- He might have killed me."
"It's... It's okay," said Jeff clutching at the wound. God why did this hurt so much? It felt like there was something on fire inside him. His guts were spilling out, as blood continued to seep into his clothing.
'The Razor... always cuts fairly.'
Jeff wasn't sure quite what happened. But suddenly... just like that, a miracle. He felt himself come to life. Not just come to life, life was pouring into him, and kept on pouring into him until he never felt this alive. Every part of him felt renewed in some way. He expected to be in the hospital... but he was still on the road, the street...
"What happened?" He asked to the stunned animal people.
"The sun came up," Said Samuel. "You're healed."
Jeff raised his eyes at the implication of that. The sun.. the sun healed him? Then... then... Oh God! He reached over to touch his wounded body- a body that... was still his own? He still had his own body! Holy hell! Did this ever happen before? He was still himself. He... he was still...
"I-Impossible," he said not quite believing it. The sun healed him but didn't change his body. He was still himself. Though... he felt something strange. A feeling inside he couldn't quite place.
"You're telling me," said Erica staring at him. "But... I'm really happy for you," she said.
Suddenly one of those strange holes appeared above them. Erica recognised it as a time portal from her adventures in the wild west. What she didn't expect though was to see a small fairy girl fly out of it, with a curious symbol of an hourglass on her satchel.
"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 in the future. It was also nice to know they will see that bandit someday.
Jeff stood up, still looking over himself. He opened his letter up a little worried of what it would say.
"Trust Ricky. They are called Proto-fairies."
The young teen looked very perplexed at that. It was a weird message indeed. Also... what was a proto-fairy? He glanced up at the rainbow sun as it cascaded down his features, but it gave no answers. All he could feel was this... really weird sensation. But it was ignorable for now. Maybe if he got out of the sun, it would stop. Sunlight must not affect him so much maybe?
"What's yours 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 descendants and the one entwined 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 good 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."
