SALTAROS: Shadows and Light
Oct. 24th, 2016 11:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zzambrosius_02Hey there, fans and other folks, I'd appreciate a little feedback here!
Does this Prologue contain enough 'recap' to remind readers of the main events detailed in the previous book, and draw them in to the new one?
Prologue: November First, 2007: the Immediate Aftermath of the Events at Mainstage Meadow.
He rolled over, still mostly asleep. He stared befuddled at the ceiling: an unfamiliar ceiling, all gigantic wooden beams and smooth plaster. He had no idea where he was, nor the slightest recollection of how he’d got there.
‘What the hell…?’ For a moment he thought he was at an SCA event, the indoor sort, where a Viscount might rate a fancy room in an old hunting lodge or some such. His head throbbed, and he felt a little dizzy, as if from overindulgence in booze and not enough sleep. That certainly sounded SCAdian!
He looked to his left and saw a woman: not even half his age, blond and lovely, with a heart-shaped face, plump lips, and a bit of the roman in her nose. He thought: ‘What have you been up to, Carlo?’ He stopped, biting his lip.
He groaned and gave himself a mental dope-slap: ‘Ambros. My name is Ambros Rothakis. A Citizen of the Hellenic Commonwealth and Polity, Trined with Kim and Luisa and Marie...and Carlo Scharffen is dead.’ That cleared the fog a bit and he recognized Kim, still deep in sleep. It all came back to him, then: ‘Ugh,’ he thought: ‘The party at Kim’s sister’s place, too much whiskey. Bleah. But…’
He decided to forgive himself: Miss Clementine had thrown him seriously with just a few words. “Eenay en kala anthros, Magistros,” she’d said with a smile; and for the second time in under four months, all the elaborate architecture of his understanding of the world came crashing down around his feet.
‘It seemed that way at first, anyway,’ he thought: ‘Tough enough on a guy to discover that his fantasies about alternate universes had a big element of truth to them; then that old lady spoke to me in Rational Hellenic...’
He shook his head hard, bringing on a wave of dizziness and pain. When that faded, he scrabbled among the heap of clothes on the floor, his and Kim’s mixed together. He poked and prodded at the pockets of his trousers: no Shifter.
“Oh, yeah. Marie took it.” And that was a good thing, too: ‘If there’s anything more perilous than driving under the influence, it just might be Shifting Timelines while plotzed.
‘I’m glad I didn’t get drunk enough to black out or start forgetting important stuff,’ he mused: ‘It was a near thing though.’
He continued his rummaging. He found the other thing he’d been seeking: a little bottle of pills. ‘Caffeine, aspirin, and little coke,’ he thought: ‘The sovereign remedy for lack of sleep and the aftereffects of intoxication.’
He shook two caplets out of the bottle and stared for a few seconds. The bottle was subtly wrong: the shape, the material, the way the top flipped open at a touch and closed by itself while he stared at it. The pills were of a size with the aspirin he’d been taking all of his life, but just a little rounder and squatter than a caplet made in America would be. He put one pill back and dry-swallowed the other. “I need water,” he said aloud.
Kim rolled over: “There’s a bathroom there,” she said, and pointed at a door behind him.
“Thanks,” he grunted. He got up and headed for the loo, suddenly conscious of several reasons to get there in a hurry.
When he was finished with the toilet he washed up and bathed his face in cold water. He stroked the scarred area on his left cheek. ‘Be nice if that would finish healing, so it would be easier to shave that side...maybe this is as good as it gets...’ He passed over the origin of the injury, thinking: ‘Riggles is in jail in the Bay Area, and Morley is apparently a changed man. I needn’t obsess about a battle I’ve clearly won.’ He groaned: ‘There are still a lot of cops in Eugene who would take great pleasure in hassling me, though. I won a battle, not the war.’
He rinsed the foul taste out of his mouth with some mouthwash he found in the cupboard. He drank a pint of water at one go, then examined the cup: “Cut-crystal tumblers in the guest quarters’ bathroom,” he muttered. Just another little reminder of the class of people he was now dealing with: ‘Old Money, and a lot of it.’
He refilled the cup, and returned to the bedroom.
Kim was stretching. He stopped to admire the view; she noticed and smiled, blushing. “What got into you last night?” she asked: “I’ve never seen you moping like that.”
“Moping? Yeah, I guess I was. Happens to everybody now and then, I expect.”
“So? What’s up, huh?”
He looked her in the eyes then, his mind starting to work as the coke and caffeine kicked in: “Your great aunt Clementine got under my skin. How much do you know about her?”
Kim made a heap of pillows and leaned back against it. “I don’t know all that much more than you do, I guess.” She made little gestures with her hands, though they stayed in her lap: “She’s my brother-in-law’s great aunt. She was a wild child, a constant source of scandal to the Orenhauser family when she was young. She and her sweetie, Miss Eleanor, were always setting some bigwig’s hair on fire, back in the day...She had a husband and two children who vanished mysteriously. It was big news when it happened.”
“Oh really?”
“Yep. During World War Two...he was a spy or something.”
They sat silent for a half a minute or so. Then: “She has money. Old Money,” Ambros observed.
“Yes. She is the last of her generation of the Orenhauser clan. The trust they founded puts the family fortune in her hands. She funded Eddie’s education, and this house, and she lent me the money to buy into Rose House.”
“Ahh,” he said, smiling: “I didn’t know that. Your father wrote the check.”
She shrugged: “The money came from Aunt Clem, though. I didn’t tell you, it didn’t seem important.”
“Agreed.”
“So,” she continued, after a moment: “what did Aunt Clem do that got to you?”
“She spoke to me in Rational Hellenic.”
“Oh, I see, I…what? Are you sure?”
He shrugged: “Fairly sure. ‘Kala’ doesn’t go with an -os ending in any other form of Greek that I know. Anthros means ‘man’ in RH; any other version of Hellenic would use ‘anthrópos’. And,” he said, looking a bit wry: “she called me Magistros.”
“But you’re a Spathos…” She paused as the implications occurred to her: “Halloween party…you were wearing a mail shirt and your knight’s belt…”
“Yes,” he said, and picked the belt up: a white belt of heavy cowhide. “I don’t rate this belt in the Commonwealth, and I’d never think of wearing it in that Timeline. But she saw it, and promoted me.”
“So she’s never heard of the Society for Creative Anachronism, but…”
After a tense moment, Ambros finished the thought: “…but she has had contact with the Hellenic Commonwealth.” He pondered the meaning of a vanishing husband, and some other possibilities he’d stumbled his way through the previous evening. He continued: “Or with one of the allied Lines, I can’t know which until I check out the recent history of this Line. Until I find out who she knew, and how.”
Kim grinned: “You could ask her.”
He laughed: “I could, and I will. But not until I am on firmer ground. I want some names and dates, so I can put the right questions to old Aunt Clem.”
“Oh. I guess that does make sense.” She scooted herself down onto her back on the bed and raised her arms above her head. “How are you feeling, recovered?”
He drank the last of the water in his glass, then grinned and reclined beside her.
When they were sated she sighed and pushed him away. “We should take a shower,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said: “I smell like booze and hangover sweat.”
She sniffed him: “Yes, you do.” She scooted a little away from him and stretched again. “What are you doing for the rest of the day?”
“I have to see Dan Samuelson today, and I don’t know exactly what time...so I guess I’ll start my day at that café in Veneta. He’ll get there sometime between nine AM and noon, I expect.” He groaned: “After that, I’m changing all of my plans, because of Aunt Clementine’s mastery of a language that doesn’t exist in this Timeline. I was going treasure hunting today; I guess that will have to wait...” He rose and helped her to her feet.
“Treasure hunting?”
“Yes,” he said, leading her into the bathroom: “I need to replenish my bank account.”
“Can’t you just call up Sacred Band Intelligence? They put in a hundred grand last time.”
He grimaced: “Yeah, and it’s entirely untraceable money, too. But that’s kinda the problem.” He turned the taps, waiting for hot water.
“Oh?”
He grinned at her: “It occurred to me that heaps of notional cash from untraceable sources falling into that account at random intervals…that’s kind of suspicious in itself.” He adjusted the temperature, then started the shower. “Even if I pay taxes on it, the bank has to report it to the feds, including to the Narcs. I think it’s a good idea to let them trace the next couple of big deposits to shady-looking but legal sources. Gonna make ’em work at it, though.” He stepped in and drew her after.
She laughed: “Should I ask?”
“If you want to know.”
“Okay, spill it.”
“Well, did you catch that article in The Sentinel about a couple who found a trove of old coins on their property in Humboldt County?” He washed her back, then turned so she could return the favor.
She said: “Noo-o…wait, I saw that on the Webz, it was just this last month, wasn’t it?’
“Yes. Now think about a few things: Quiet Timelines, for instance.”
“Oh. Where all the people are dead…” Kim got her hair wet and began to shampoo. He slipped his hands over hers and began to massage her scalp.
“Yes. In some of those Lines, the trove remained undetected, right?”
“Ri-i-ight! So you just go get it and bring it back and sell the coins and…presto! You have cash to deposit.”
She pulled away from him and ducked under the showerhead: “This shampoo has some kind of conditioner in it...I’m done in here,” she said, pushing him away.
“Later,” she said, smiling.
He stayed in the shower after she got out, letting the hottest water he could stand pour down his back and over his shoulders. After a solid ten minutes of sweating and rinsing, he slowly cut the hot water back until he was standing in a cold rain.
By then his mind was in gear, and his thoughts clear.
The exhaust fan in the shower was of as a high a quality as everything else in the house. The steam vanished in seconds. He dried himself with huge fluffy towels, and then looked around. There was a laundry chute in the corner, so he dropped the towels down it. He tied his long mostly gray hair up into a topknot, and went to dress.
“Hey Kim, where are ya?”
“Out here, love, through the wooden door.”
He chose the correct door, and stepped into a spacious sitting room. At one end of that room there was a breakfast nook, where Kim, Luisa, and Marie sat eating.
“We saved you some of everything, “ said Marie. At age 39, Marie’s hair still shone chestnut brown. She’d lost some pounds since Ambros had taken her to the Commonwealth. After Iatros Versingos replaced the discs that U.S. doctors had removed from her neck and the small of her back, and repaired her metabolism, she’d begun to exercise more, and it showed. ‘She’s still very womanly, but in way better shape,’ he thought.
She put his Shifter on the table next to his plate; he slipped it into his pocket without comment.
Luisa pushed the serving tray in his direction. In her mid thirties, she had a very bosomy figure, and hair somewhat darker than Marie’s. The first time Ambros saw her, he’d been reminded of Frida Kahlo.
“Thanks,” he said, and dug in: omelet, potatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, coffee and a pot of tea. “Mmmm, that’s good tea,” he said.
Luisa said: “Kim was saying that you are going on a treasure hunt...”
“Yeah,” he said: “But not today, I guess.”
“It seems too easy, just drop into another Line and snag a pot of gold...” Marie added cream to her coffee and grinned mischievously.
Ambros laughed: “Well, it’s a bit harder than that. The couple deliberately disguised their identities and the location of their property. I’ll have to use the New Pismo to get that data. Commonwealth information tech will make that possible, but it will take a couple hours. Then I’ll have to Shift over to, say, the Alcatraz Quiet Line and figure out where exactly the property is, and where on the property the swag is hidden—in that Line. I know it’s near the base of a tree along a ridgeline trail in our Line, but that’s all. I’ll probably have to hike the trail, maybe more than one such trail, with my Shifter and MPS live, hunting for anomalous metals. Then I can dig up the loot and Shift back home.
“Even once I have the trove in hand, I’ll have to be careful about how I cash it in...”
“Really?” Marie frowned, thoughtful.
“Yeah. Think about it: the couple in question took their hoard to a licensed coin guy, who helped them auction it on the international coin market. They got about ten million bucks. I’ll never get that much. If I try to follow their lead, it’ll get into the news for sure, right?”
“Oh...” Luisa pondered for a moment: “Ri-i-ght. If you show up with a similar batch of coins...”
“Very likely 99% the same, down to the scratches and nicks on the surfaces...so I’ll have to sell to coin dealers in scattered locations, and dribble the sales out over several years time. I will not get ten million bucks all at once.
“On the other hand, having thought of this, I can do similar things in other Lines.”
“Such as?”
He shrugged: “For one, I could raid coin shops in Quiet Lines. I have other, less solid ideas...ways to get untraceable treasures, convertible to cash.
“However,” he continued, in a sardonic tone: “I think I need to see Arrenji and Voukli ASAP.”
Kim agreed: “What with Aunt Clem speaking Rational Hellenic and all that.”
“What?” asked Luisa.
Ambros sat silent while Kim told the story.
“Wow,” said Luisa. “I don’t know what to say...”
Marie said: “I don’t either. I guess you’d better get on that, today.”
“Yes,” he said: “I think that’s best. I’ll make an appointment...”
“You said Dan Samuelson first,” Kim reminded him.
Ambros nodded, activating his MPS (the machine he called the “Multiversal Positioning System”) and ticking off items on his fingers: “Deputy Dan, sometime between ten and noon; I can research Aunt Clem and her lovers while I wait for him; then meet the Magistriae...”
He paused a moment; the machine had detected some bugs, someone spying on the room. He muted the mics and used a feedback program to destroy the camera.
Kim said “Maybe you can see them right after you drop me at Tech Guild Skolo?”
He nodded: “Sounds about right.”
Marie began to speak: “So, let’s schedule the next week, starting with today. I am prepping for this weekend’s catering job.” She glanced at her laptop:
“Kim is at school, then she’s scheduled to help me this evening.”
“I have a writing day today,” said Luisa.
“Ambros: What’s your schedule this week?” Marie asked.
He sat for a moment, pondering: “Dan, then drop Kim off in the Commonwealth in time for her class; meet my mentors; teach my sword class. That’ll do for today...”
“You better be home tonight...” Luisa said, pointedly.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said grinning. Thursday after sword class had become Luisa and Marie’s night with him.
“Too much to do,” said Marie, dryly.
“We all have too much to do for any of us to get done.” He smiled pointedly:
“At least I have some back-up now.
“I want to visit the largest of those homeless camps out in the swamp west of town..."
"Part of your organizing strategy, bottom up and top down," said Marie.
"Yeah," said Ambros: "I could go there Sunday afternoon...If I go for the coins on Saturday...”
“I want Saturday night, after Samuel B’s,” said Kim.
“Absolutely,” he agreed: “Anyway, I’d look pretty scruffy after two nights among the homeless,” he continued: “and I could use that scruffiness when I Shift to New York to sell the first batch of coins. Then...at some point around that time, contingent on what those...Giant Ant Aliens meant by ‘Two hundred hours’, I will need to be at Alcatraz for the meeting with them. It. Whatever. That’d be...Thursday at Sixth Bell—three PM our time.”
“Oh. We probably wouldn’t see you again until...” Marie was frowning.
“Tuesday morning, or, if I stay an extra night in the swamp...” He wondered how long that meeting might last; with that, and figuring in a trip to the Big City to get the best possible price for the trove: “Maybe Thursday night, after my sword class.”
“Um...” said Marie.
“I could drive the truck for the catering job this weekend, and Luisa could take my jeep,” said Kim.
“Good enough,” said Marie. “Everyone have everyone else’s schedules in your calendars?”
Kim said: “I’ve been getting the short end of the ‘nights together’ lately. Just sayin’.”
“We’ll make it up to you,” Ambros said: “The Friday after the meeting with the Ants...all day, if you want.”
Kim drew a deep breath: “That’ll do,” she conceded.
Marie and Luisa each nodded.
After a short silence, Marie said: “Well, I guess we better get going.”
“It’s probably not wise to just Shift out of here,” Kim grinned at him.
“Yeah,” he said. “I dropped in at the foot of the hill for the party, and walked up, but I think we should take the jeep and truck home, then start our day for real.”
As he headed for the bedroom to get his tunic and mail and belt, he took a ‘photo’ of the anomalous wiring and spyware with his MPS. He flagged that record, so the MPS would remind him to show it to Averos at Tech Guild.
They said good-bye to their hostess in the front foyer. They didn’t see her husband. Sarah Mallory Roth embraced her sister, and Kim said: “I’ll come out to see you soon.” Rain began to fall as they approached their vehicles.
“Looks like it’s going to be an unpleasant day,” said Luisa.
Ambros laughed a little: “Yeah. A good day to spend in another Line, or in a café, reading and writing.”
Does this Prologue contain enough 'recap' to remind readers of the main events detailed in the previous book, and draw them in to the new one?
Prologue: November First, 2007: the Immediate Aftermath of the Events at Mainstage Meadow.
He rolled over, still mostly asleep. He stared befuddled at the ceiling: an unfamiliar ceiling, all gigantic wooden beams and smooth plaster. He had no idea where he was, nor the slightest recollection of how he’d got there.
‘What the hell…?’ For a moment he thought he was at an SCA event, the indoor sort, where a Viscount might rate a fancy room in an old hunting lodge or some such. His head throbbed, and he felt a little dizzy, as if from overindulgence in booze and not enough sleep. That certainly sounded SCAdian!
He looked to his left and saw a woman: not even half his age, blond and lovely, with a heart-shaped face, plump lips, and a bit of the roman in her nose. He thought: ‘What have you been up to, Carlo?’ He stopped, biting his lip.
He groaned and gave himself a mental dope-slap: ‘Ambros. My name is Ambros Rothakis. A Citizen of the Hellenic Commonwealth and Polity, Trined with Kim and Luisa and Marie...and Carlo Scharffen is dead.’ That cleared the fog a bit and he recognized Kim, still deep in sleep. It all came back to him, then: ‘Ugh,’ he thought: ‘The party at Kim’s sister’s place, too much whiskey. Bleah. But…’
He decided to forgive himself: Miss Clementine had thrown him seriously with just a few words. “Eenay en kala anthros, Magistros,” she’d said with a smile; and for the second time in under four months, all the elaborate architecture of his understanding of the world came crashing down around his feet.
‘It seemed that way at first, anyway,’ he thought: ‘Tough enough on a guy to discover that his fantasies about alternate universes had a big element of truth to them; then that old lady spoke to me in Rational Hellenic...’
He shook his head hard, bringing on a wave of dizziness and pain. When that faded, he scrabbled among the heap of clothes on the floor, his and Kim’s mixed together. He poked and prodded at the pockets of his trousers: no Shifter.
“Oh, yeah. Marie took it.” And that was a good thing, too: ‘If there’s anything more perilous than driving under the influence, it just might be Shifting Timelines while plotzed.
‘I’m glad I didn’t get drunk enough to black out or start forgetting important stuff,’ he mused: ‘It was a near thing though.’
He continued his rummaging. He found the other thing he’d been seeking: a little bottle of pills. ‘Caffeine, aspirin, and little coke,’ he thought: ‘The sovereign remedy for lack of sleep and the aftereffects of intoxication.’
He shook two caplets out of the bottle and stared for a few seconds. The bottle was subtly wrong: the shape, the material, the way the top flipped open at a touch and closed by itself while he stared at it. The pills were of a size with the aspirin he’d been taking all of his life, but just a little rounder and squatter than a caplet made in America would be. He put one pill back and dry-swallowed the other. “I need water,” he said aloud.
Kim rolled over: “There’s a bathroom there,” she said, and pointed at a door behind him.
“Thanks,” he grunted. He got up and headed for the loo, suddenly conscious of several reasons to get there in a hurry.
When he was finished with the toilet he washed up and bathed his face in cold water. He stroked the scarred area on his left cheek. ‘Be nice if that would finish healing, so it would be easier to shave that side...maybe this is as good as it gets...’ He passed over the origin of the injury, thinking: ‘Riggles is in jail in the Bay Area, and Morley is apparently a changed man. I needn’t obsess about a battle I’ve clearly won.’ He groaned: ‘There are still a lot of cops in Eugene who would take great pleasure in hassling me, though. I won a battle, not the war.’
He rinsed the foul taste out of his mouth with some mouthwash he found in the cupboard. He drank a pint of water at one go, then examined the cup: “Cut-crystal tumblers in the guest quarters’ bathroom,” he muttered. Just another little reminder of the class of people he was now dealing with: ‘Old Money, and a lot of it.’
He refilled the cup, and returned to the bedroom.
Kim was stretching. He stopped to admire the view; she noticed and smiled, blushing. “What got into you last night?” she asked: “I’ve never seen you moping like that.”
“Moping? Yeah, I guess I was. Happens to everybody now and then, I expect.”
“So? What’s up, huh?”
He looked her in the eyes then, his mind starting to work as the coke and caffeine kicked in: “Your great aunt Clementine got under my skin. How much do you know about her?”
Kim made a heap of pillows and leaned back against it. “I don’t know all that much more than you do, I guess.” She made little gestures with her hands, though they stayed in her lap: “She’s my brother-in-law’s great aunt. She was a wild child, a constant source of scandal to the Orenhauser family when she was young. She and her sweetie, Miss Eleanor, were always setting some bigwig’s hair on fire, back in the day...She had a husband and two children who vanished mysteriously. It was big news when it happened.”
“Oh really?”
“Yep. During World War Two...he was a spy or something.”
They sat silent for a half a minute or so. Then: “She has money. Old Money,” Ambros observed.
“Yes. She is the last of her generation of the Orenhauser clan. The trust they founded puts the family fortune in her hands. She funded Eddie’s education, and this house, and she lent me the money to buy into Rose House.”
“Ahh,” he said, smiling: “I didn’t know that. Your father wrote the check.”
She shrugged: “The money came from Aunt Clem, though. I didn’t tell you, it didn’t seem important.”
“Agreed.”
“So,” she continued, after a moment: “what did Aunt Clem do that got to you?”
“She spoke to me in Rational Hellenic.”
“Oh, I see, I…what? Are you sure?”
He shrugged: “Fairly sure. ‘Kala’ doesn’t go with an -os ending in any other form of Greek that I know. Anthros means ‘man’ in RH; any other version of Hellenic would use ‘anthrópos’. And,” he said, looking a bit wry: “she called me Magistros.”
“But you’re a Spathos…” She paused as the implications occurred to her: “Halloween party…you were wearing a mail shirt and your knight’s belt…”
“Yes,” he said, and picked the belt up: a white belt of heavy cowhide. “I don’t rate this belt in the Commonwealth, and I’d never think of wearing it in that Timeline. But she saw it, and promoted me.”
“So she’s never heard of the Society for Creative Anachronism, but…”
After a tense moment, Ambros finished the thought: “…but she has had contact with the Hellenic Commonwealth.” He pondered the meaning of a vanishing husband, and some other possibilities he’d stumbled his way through the previous evening. He continued: “Or with one of the allied Lines, I can’t know which until I check out the recent history of this Line. Until I find out who she knew, and how.”
Kim grinned: “You could ask her.”
He laughed: “I could, and I will. But not until I am on firmer ground. I want some names and dates, so I can put the right questions to old Aunt Clem.”
“Oh. I guess that does make sense.” She scooted herself down onto her back on the bed and raised her arms above her head. “How are you feeling, recovered?”
He drank the last of the water in his glass, then grinned and reclined beside her.
When they were sated she sighed and pushed him away. “We should take a shower,” she said.
“Yeah,” he said: “I smell like booze and hangover sweat.”
She sniffed him: “Yes, you do.” She scooted a little away from him and stretched again. “What are you doing for the rest of the day?”
“I have to see Dan Samuelson today, and I don’t know exactly what time...so I guess I’ll start my day at that café in Veneta. He’ll get there sometime between nine AM and noon, I expect.” He groaned: “After that, I’m changing all of my plans, because of Aunt Clementine’s mastery of a language that doesn’t exist in this Timeline. I was going treasure hunting today; I guess that will have to wait...” He rose and helped her to her feet.
“Treasure hunting?”
“Yes,” he said, leading her into the bathroom: “I need to replenish my bank account.”
“Can’t you just call up Sacred Band Intelligence? They put in a hundred grand last time.”
He grimaced: “Yeah, and it’s entirely untraceable money, too. But that’s kinda the problem.” He turned the taps, waiting for hot water.
“Oh?”
He grinned at her: “It occurred to me that heaps of notional cash from untraceable sources falling into that account at random intervals…that’s kind of suspicious in itself.” He adjusted the temperature, then started the shower. “Even if I pay taxes on it, the bank has to report it to the feds, including to the Narcs. I think it’s a good idea to let them trace the next couple of big deposits to shady-looking but legal sources. Gonna make ’em work at it, though.” He stepped in and drew her after.
She laughed: “Should I ask?”
“If you want to know.”
“Okay, spill it.”
“Well, did you catch that article in The Sentinel about a couple who found a trove of old coins on their property in Humboldt County?” He washed her back, then turned so she could return the favor.
She said: “Noo-o…wait, I saw that on the Webz, it was just this last month, wasn’t it?’
“Yes. Now think about a few things: Quiet Timelines, for instance.”
“Oh. Where all the people are dead…” Kim got her hair wet and began to shampoo. He slipped his hands over hers and began to massage her scalp.
“Yes. In some of those Lines, the trove remained undetected, right?”
“Ri-i-ight! So you just go get it and bring it back and sell the coins and…presto! You have cash to deposit.”
She pulled away from him and ducked under the showerhead: “This shampoo has some kind of conditioner in it...I’m done in here,” she said, pushing him away.
“Later,” she said, smiling.
He stayed in the shower after she got out, letting the hottest water he could stand pour down his back and over his shoulders. After a solid ten minutes of sweating and rinsing, he slowly cut the hot water back until he was standing in a cold rain.
By then his mind was in gear, and his thoughts clear.
The exhaust fan in the shower was of as a high a quality as everything else in the house. The steam vanished in seconds. He dried himself with huge fluffy towels, and then looked around. There was a laundry chute in the corner, so he dropped the towels down it. He tied his long mostly gray hair up into a topknot, and went to dress.
“Hey Kim, where are ya?”
“Out here, love, through the wooden door.”
He chose the correct door, and stepped into a spacious sitting room. At one end of that room there was a breakfast nook, where Kim, Luisa, and Marie sat eating.
“We saved you some of everything, “ said Marie. At age 39, Marie’s hair still shone chestnut brown. She’d lost some pounds since Ambros had taken her to the Commonwealth. After Iatros Versingos replaced the discs that U.S. doctors had removed from her neck and the small of her back, and repaired her metabolism, she’d begun to exercise more, and it showed. ‘She’s still very womanly, but in way better shape,’ he thought.
She put his Shifter on the table next to his plate; he slipped it into his pocket without comment.
Luisa pushed the serving tray in his direction. In her mid thirties, she had a very bosomy figure, and hair somewhat darker than Marie’s. The first time Ambros saw her, he’d been reminded of Frida Kahlo.
“Thanks,” he said, and dug in: omelet, potatoes, sun-dried tomatoes, coffee and a pot of tea. “Mmmm, that’s good tea,” he said.
Luisa said: “Kim was saying that you are going on a treasure hunt...”
“Yeah,” he said: “But not today, I guess.”
“It seems too easy, just drop into another Line and snag a pot of gold...” Marie added cream to her coffee and grinned mischievously.
Ambros laughed: “Well, it’s a bit harder than that. The couple deliberately disguised their identities and the location of their property. I’ll have to use the New Pismo to get that data. Commonwealth information tech will make that possible, but it will take a couple hours. Then I’ll have to Shift over to, say, the Alcatraz Quiet Line and figure out where exactly the property is, and where on the property the swag is hidden—in that Line. I know it’s near the base of a tree along a ridgeline trail in our Line, but that’s all. I’ll probably have to hike the trail, maybe more than one such trail, with my Shifter and MPS live, hunting for anomalous metals. Then I can dig up the loot and Shift back home.
“Even once I have the trove in hand, I’ll have to be careful about how I cash it in...”
“Really?” Marie frowned, thoughtful.
“Yeah. Think about it: the couple in question took their hoard to a licensed coin guy, who helped them auction it on the international coin market. They got about ten million bucks. I’ll never get that much. If I try to follow their lead, it’ll get into the news for sure, right?”
“Oh...” Luisa pondered for a moment: “Ri-i-ght. If you show up with a similar batch of coins...”
“Very likely 99% the same, down to the scratches and nicks on the surfaces...so I’ll have to sell to coin dealers in scattered locations, and dribble the sales out over several years time. I will not get ten million bucks all at once.
“On the other hand, having thought of this, I can do similar things in other Lines.”
“Such as?”
He shrugged: “For one, I could raid coin shops in Quiet Lines. I have other, less solid ideas...ways to get untraceable treasures, convertible to cash.
“However,” he continued, in a sardonic tone: “I think I need to see Arrenji and Voukli ASAP.”
Kim agreed: “What with Aunt Clem speaking Rational Hellenic and all that.”
“What?” asked Luisa.
Ambros sat silent while Kim told the story.
“Wow,” said Luisa. “I don’t know what to say...”
Marie said: “I don’t either. I guess you’d better get on that, today.”
“Yes,” he said: “I think that’s best. I’ll make an appointment...”
“You said Dan Samuelson first,” Kim reminded him.
Ambros nodded, activating his MPS (the machine he called the “Multiversal Positioning System”) and ticking off items on his fingers: “Deputy Dan, sometime between ten and noon; I can research Aunt Clem and her lovers while I wait for him; then meet the Magistriae...”
He paused a moment; the machine had detected some bugs, someone spying on the room. He muted the mics and used a feedback program to destroy the camera.
Kim said “Maybe you can see them right after you drop me at Tech Guild Skolo?”
He nodded: “Sounds about right.”
Marie began to speak: “So, let’s schedule the next week, starting with today. I am prepping for this weekend’s catering job.” She glanced at her laptop:
“Kim is at school, then she’s scheduled to help me this evening.”
“I have a writing day today,” said Luisa.
“Ambros: What’s your schedule this week?” Marie asked.
He sat for a moment, pondering: “Dan, then drop Kim off in the Commonwealth in time for her class; meet my mentors; teach my sword class. That’ll do for today...”
“You better be home tonight...” Luisa said, pointedly.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said grinning. Thursday after sword class had become Luisa and Marie’s night with him.
“Too much to do,” said Marie, dryly.
“We all have too much to do for any of us to get done.” He smiled pointedly:
“At least I have some back-up now.
“I want to visit the largest of those homeless camps out in the swamp west of town..."
"Part of your organizing strategy, bottom up and top down," said Marie.
"Yeah," said Ambros: "I could go there Sunday afternoon...If I go for the coins on Saturday...”
“I want Saturday night, after Samuel B’s,” said Kim.
“Absolutely,” he agreed: “Anyway, I’d look pretty scruffy after two nights among the homeless,” he continued: “and I could use that scruffiness when I Shift to New York to sell the first batch of coins. Then...at some point around that time, contingent on what those...Giant Ant Aliens meant by ‘Two hundred hours’, I will need to be at Alcatraz for the meeting with them. It. Whatever. That’d be...Thursday at Sixth Bell—three PM our time.”
“Oh. We probably wouldn’t see you again until...” Marie was frowning.
“Tuesday morning, or, if I stay an extra night in the swamp...” He wondered how long that meeting might last; with that, and figuring in a trip to the Big City to get the best possible price for the trove: “Maybe Thursday night, after my sword class.”
“Um...” said Marie.
“I could drive the truck for the catering job this weekend, and Luisa could take my jeep,” said Kim.
“Good enough,” said Marie. “Everyone have everyone else’s schedules in your calendars?”
Kim said: “I’ve been getting the short end of the ‘nights together’ lately. Just sayin’.”
“We’ll make it up to you,” Ambros said: “The Friday after the meeting with the Ants...all day, if you want.”
Kim drew a deep breath: “That’ll do,” she conceded.
Marie and Luisa each nodded.
After a short silence, Marie said: “Well, I guess we better get going.”
“It’s probably not wise to just Shift out of here,” Kim grinned at him.
“Yeah,” he said. “I dropped in at the foot of the hill for the party, and walked up, but I think we should take the jeep and truck home, then start our day for real.”
As he headed for the bedroom to get his tunic and mail and belt, he took a ‘photo’ of the anomalous wiring and spyware with his MPS. He flagged that record, so the MPS would remind him to show it to Averos at Tech Guild.
They said good-bye to their hostess in the front foyer. They didn’t see her husband. Sarah Mallory Roth embraced her sister, and Kim said: “I’ll come out to see you soon.” Rain began to fall as they approached their vehicles.
“Looks like it’s going to be an unpleasant day,” said Luisa.
Ambros laughed a little: “Yeah. A good day to spend in another Line, or in a café, reading and writing.”
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no subject
Date: 2016-10-24 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-25 03:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-25 06:23 pm (UTC)homeless camp
Date: 2016-10-27 06:55 pm (UTC)Re: homeless camp
Date: 2016-10-27 07:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-10-26 06:09 am (UTC)