The three of them walked onto a lift and closed the doors.
"What is this place?" Charlie asked, as they moved downward.
"It was a mining facility, before the squids occupied this planet. Now we use it as our base of operations. It doesn't look like much, but it's fortified. We're safe here."
"Where are you from?" the young man asked Charlie. He looked at White. "Sorry. I was just curious. The last outlander came when I was a kid."
"Tell him," White said to Charlie.
"Los Angeles. Do you know where that is?"
"I've heard of it," the young man said. "That's ... on the island of California. Right?"
"Island?"
"He's from a pre-Rengarian era," White told the young man.
"Oh." He looked as disappointed as White looked when Charlie told him what year he was from.
"People from 2008 aren't so backwards, you know," Charlie said, in offense.
"Maybe not," White said. "But look at it from our point-of-view. They didn't even have space travel back then."
"We had NASA."
"Okay, then. They didn't have interstellar travel." He paused. "But don't think that we're ungrateful. You at least come from a technological age, even if it is a grounded one. We could have easily gotten someone from 300 years in your past, instead of you."
"Why am I so special?" Charlie asked. "Besides the fact that I'm from a different time, I mean."
"You didn't tell him?" the young man asked White.
"I was going to wait."
"Tell me what? What makes me so special?"
"I will tell you. Just wait a little more and everything will be explained to you." The lift stopped. "We're here."
The doors opened.
