The Chase

The now familiar blue glow surrounded me, the low thrum tickling my ears. There we went again, on yet another mission. Had I known beforehand, I doubt I would have taken up the job. But it’s too late now. Hell, in this line of work, even the concept of “late” becomes fuzzy…

Once again I thanked the chameleon technology of my unitard, which morphed into a simple peasant dress, as I materialized in what was clearly the European Middle Ages. Not my favourite age, let me tell you. But then, I don’t feel comfortable in many ages or places. Funny that.

I searched around me. The scanner would ping me as soon as it detected him, but old habits die hard. I prefer old habits, frankly: technology breaks down. I shivered at the prospect of time-displacement technology breaking down, but right then I heard the ping. I ran for a couple of minutes, paying no attention to the medieval soldiers around me. Then I stopped.

A pyre. And the woman in there, the crowd shouting… He’d taken me to the burning of Joan of Arc? The bastard.

There he was. He noticed me almost at the same time, and winked at me, as he disappeared in his own blue glow.

Shit.

I shifted again. Oh, an elegant short skirt, this hat… America in the 30’s. This certainly looked like New York. It was. I liked this one: King Kong’s première. Damn, having the chance to watch the movie was such a nice prospect that I hoped he wouldn’t catch me.

Silly me. I saw his hand extending towards me just in time.

We shifted again, almost together.

There he was, on a street in a city that looked very much like London in the late nineteenth Century. He had a newspaper in his hand, one that showed a large photograph. But his clothes were wrong: he looked like the quintessential Chicago gangster from a cheap movie.

He shrugged and disappeared.

City streets. The States again, it seemed to me. In the park, some kids were playing some sport. A rudimentary form of basketball, with a real basket hanging from a single post. I looked down at myself and, just like it had happened to my prey, my clothes were plain wrong for the age: I was wearing post-world war one clothes. Damned glitches.

Oh no. No, no, no. I hate this age. Venice is as beautiful as ever, but I look like a birthday cake, all frills and laces and silks and taffeta. The makeup is terrible. And the men are even worse. A man runs away from constables of some kind and jumps a parapet into a canal. He boards a gondola and flees.

And there he is, standing out from the crowd dressed like a musketeer from the previous century.

Shift.

Men chasing a turkey. But these men looked at the animal with awe and surprise, as if they had never seen one. Which they surely haven’t, I thought from the comfort of my treetop, since we must have displaced to the discovery of America by the Spanish.

And sure enough, there he was. Chasing me. I turned around and shifted.

Britain again, indisputably nineteenth century again. A postman delivers a letter, a Black Penny attached to the envelope. Amazing.

There he is. Wrong attire again. Another glitch?

I don’t mind.

Gotcha.

***

I placed my last card on the table. The birth of the Dollar, 1792. Three correct cards to John’s one.

“How d’you know that?” he asked.

I laughed.

“Lost with that card last time!”

~~~~

This is my entry for the Weekly Writing Exercise: May 30–June 5, 2016 on the Writer’s Discussion Group in Google+. I had never thought of using Timeline cards as prompts, but it was a good idea.

I did have a tough time this week, because I didn’t have any good ideas, and I didn’t want to just stick to one of the images, but instead wanted to use as many of them as I could. In the end I settled for the story above, where I used the fact that, after all, Timeline is a game.

There’s one reason that makes this story special, though: it will be the last time I take part in the Writing Exercise. But that’s good news, because from now on I will be the one in charge of it. It’s a great responsibility, but I’m excited about it (and in fact, at the time of writing this my first prompt is already in the running).

I’ve decided I’ll keep writing stories based on the prompts I choose, but I won’t enter them in the exercise. I’ll try to choose my prompts so that they are interesting and open to anyone, but obviously my taking part as a “contestant” wouldn’t be fair.