Sispyhus Rising
…can't be the real world…
When the haze had cleared, and darkness had given way to light, the first sensation that Taylor was aware of was a searing pain all over his body. He could feel dust and dirt under his fingers and his forehead, and whenever he drew in a breath there was a spike of intense pain in his side. He let out a quiet moan of pain, one that was barely audible over the hum and din of noise all around him, and squeezed his eyes closed.
"Ni meí shì bà?"
A hand on his back, just between his shoulder blades, and he raised his head gingerly. He opened his eyes to find crouched before him a lanky man with dark and messy hair, peering down at him with concerned bright blue eyes. "Wh-where am I?" Taylor asked hazily, not quite completely aware just yet. "What the fuck happened to me?"
"Careful," the man cautioned as Taylor tried to lever himself upright. "You're at Kitchener Docks in Sandford Downs. And as for what happened to you…" His voice trailed off as he helped Taylor to sit up. "Well, that's something I just don't know. You popped straight outta nowhere."
"I feel like I've been hit by a truck," Taylor mumbled. "And a fucking massive truck at that." He leaned forward and drew his knees up to his chest, resting his forehead on them and letting his eyes drift closed.
"What's your name?"
The question was asked almost cautiously, and Taylor swallowed hard before he answered. "T-Taylor," he replied, silently cursing his voice for shaking so much. "Taylor H-Hanson."
"Well then, my name's Jared," the man told him.
"Medic coming through!"
Taylor looked up just in time to see a young woman dressed in a light blue uniform come running through the milling crowd. She carried a black case by its handle in one hand. "What happened here?" she asked when she had stopped running, her tone brisk and no-nonsense.
"I honestly don't know," Jared replied, and Taylor could tell right away that he was lying. "I think he must have tripped and fallen over, or maybe he fell off a ship. I was over there at my ship when I heard him call out." He pointed in a direction off behind Taylor's head as he spoke these last words.
"Is your ship fairly close?"
When Jared nodded, the young woman bent down and helped Taylor to his feet. Here Taylor could see that on her uniform was an insignia of a serpent entwined around a staff, embroidered in dark blue – and just from that, Taylor knew she was a doctor. "Easy does it," she warned as Taylor stumbled slightly. "Don't want you tripping over again."
The next words that Taylor spoke were somewhat panicked.
"Did anyone see where my bag got to?" he asked, his tone almost frantic. "It's black canvas, it's got brass buckles and a really long strap."
Jared spotted the wayward bag almost immediately, lying a few feet away, and he darted over to pick it up. "Is this it?" he asked, holding it up, and Taylor nodded in response.
The three made their way slowly back to what Taylor had to assume was Jared's ship, Jared with the strap of Taylor's bag slung over a shoulder. Assumption was the order of the day, because never in his life had Taylor ever seen anything like it.
It looked for all the world like an oversized insect. Painted a dull gunmetal grey, it was easily as tall as a house, if not taller, and in place of wings it had one rocket either side of its body. A wide ramp in the craft's underside had been lowered to rest on the ground, creating a sort of entrance into the ship.
"Zenme le?"
Jared looked back over his shoulder and stopped walking. After a couple of seconds so did Taylor and the doctor. Standing behind then was a petite-looking young woman with long and messy red hair, one eyebrow raised in question. Behind her sat a low wooden wagon piled with food, bottles of water and various other supplies, all secured tightly in place with netting. Over one of her shoulders was the strap of a large canvas bag.
"We've had a bit of an injury, Rika," Jared explained. "Is Shannon far away?"
"Not too far, I shouldn't think." Rika shifted her bag just slightly. "Do you need any help?"
Jared's response was to nod toward the ship. "Take all that into the cargo bay, then go and prep the infirmary."
Rika nodded, grasped the handle of the wagon tighter and headed through into the ship, the wagon trundling along behind her as she went.
"Okay, watch your step," Jared cautioned as he, the doctor and Taylor started to head into the cargo bay. They stepped onto the ramp and walked slowly up it, Jared bending down to pick up a ratty-looking faded lawn chair as they went. "We'll have to climb a couple steps to get to the infirmary – reckon you can manage it?"
"I can try," Taylor replied.
"Good enough," Jared decided. "Come on, then."
As they passed through the entrance a brass plate on the interior wall caught Taylor's eye, and he stopped to have a closer look. What he read there shook his entire world down to its foundations.
"SISYPHUS"
Allied Spacecraft Corp., Osiris
Firefly Ship Works, Ltd., Hera
Mandel & Earls, Ltd., Londinium
September 2459
"Oh hell no," he whispered. "No no no…" This can't be real, he thought frantically. What the fuck happened to me?
It was impossible. How he could have travelled more than four centuries into the future, he didn't know. Nobody had invented time travel yet, so far as he knew anyhow, and he was fairly sure such an invention was quite a ways off. The last thing he remembered before arriving was driving his car up the Santa Monica Freeway on his way to work – and after that, nothing but black and emptiness.
"I am definitely not in Kansas anymore," he murmured.
Rika was waiting for them in the infirmary. It was a stark, white room just off the kitchen that looked very much like a doctor's examination room – which, Taylor supposed, it really was. It was just a little more futuristic than he was used to. She had tied her hair back off her face into a low ponytail at the back of her neck.
"Take your shirt off, please," the doctor requested as she popped the latches on what Taylor had now realised was nothing more than a doctor's kitbag, much like the one that his mother used for work. He did as he was asked, wincing in pain as he lifted the hem of his T-shirt over his head. The necklaces he wore nearly went with it – his ankh, his father's dog tag from his stint in the Persian Gulf, and his wedding band. He folded his shirt hurriedly and tossed it carefully onto a nearby examination table.
"Let's see now," the doctor said as she took an instrument that looked like a handheld image scanner from her kitbag. She swiped and prodded a finger across its LCD display, before holding the scanner up in front of Taylor. A frown briefly creased her brow. "Does it hurt to breathe?" she asked, her tone almost conversational.
"Yeah, it does. It hurts a lot, actually."
"Not entirely surprising. You've fractured a couple of ribs on your left side." She swiped a finger again across the scanner's display. "Aside from that, though, you have a badly sprained left wrist."
"Nothing else?"
The doctor shook her head. "Nothing else. I believe you may just have a very good guardian angel watching over you." She turned her scanner off and stowed it back in her kit bag, taking out a wrist brace. "Wear this brace for the next week, unless you're bathing or swimming," she instructed as she handed it to Taylor. "The rib fractures I unfortunately can't do much about – ice your ribs, take some painkillers, and rest up as much as possible. They should be healed in approximately three weeks." The kitbag was latched once more, and the doctor turned to Jared. "May I speak with you in private?" she asked him.
"So what's your name?"
Taylor looked over from picking his shirt back up and unfolding it. Rika stood behind him with her hands clasped in front of her and head tilted slightly toward her left shoulder. "Taylor," he responded as he tried to put his shirt back on one-handed.
"Oh, let me help you with that." Rika stepped forward and helped Taylor pull his shirt back on. She pulled the chains of Taylor's necklaces out of the shirt's collar and let the ankh and ring fall back to rest against his chest. "What's this from?" she asked as she studied the dog tag closely.
"It was my dad's," Taylor explained. "He was a soldier – killed in action when I was seven." He took the tag in his fingers and ran the pad of his thumb over the lettering embossed into the steel.
"I'm sorry to hear that."
Taylor nodded quickly. "What's your name?" he asked, steering the conversation in a different direction.
"Sarika. Rika's just one of my nicknames here on the ship. Everyone else, they call me Sari or just ‘hey you'." Taylor laughed softly at this, and Sarika cracked a smile. She picked up the wrist brace. "I'll brace up your wrist for you if you like."
Out in the corridor, Jared and the medic were deep in discussion about Taylor.
"Do you know anything about him or how he arrived in Sandford Downs?" the medic asked.
"Not a thing," Jared replied. "He just appeared right out of nowhere – I heard an explosion when I was outside on the loading ramp, and once the dust had cleared I saw him lying in the square. Never even met or seen him before today."
"I see," the medic mused. "He's been hit by something with quite a bit of weight behind it. That he wasn't killed or injured more severely is a blessing – he got off relatively lightly. I'd advise you to allow him to rest up on your ship for a few weeks, so that his injuries can heal."
She unlatched her kitbag again and took out her scanner. "When I scanned him for injuries, I noted something out of the ordinary. I would put his age at twenty-eight, nearly twenty-nine, and aside from a few respiratory issues he's in excellent health." Her fingertips danced across the scanner's display, bringing up her patient's vitals. "What I'm somewhat concerned about is that he has a number of toxins and pollutants in his system that haven't been in the atmosphere in, well, more than four hundred years."
"Since Earth-That-Was," Jared realised, and the medic nodded. "He's a Traveller, then."
"It would seem that way, yes," the medic agreed. "He likely doesn't realise this is what has happened to him. I would guess that it was a highly traumatic event that brought him here from his home time and world, as it has been with other Travellers. What that event was, I can't say for sure, but he will probably remember for himself given enough time."
Jared nodded to show he understood. "Xièxie ni, Doc."
Shannon arrived back at the ship not much later, tossing an apple from hand to hand as he walked up the loading ramp into the cargo bay. Jared was sitting on a catwalk above the deck, feet swinging slightly back and forth. "Ship fuelled up?" he asked his brother.
"All fuelled up and ready to go," Shannon confirmed. "Kitchen stocked?"
Jared nodded. "Rika went to the markets, wandered around a bit and got us some supplies. Should keep us going for this job, maybe the next as well."
"Shiny," Shannon said, sounding content. "I'll get us up in the air."
"Before you do, we've picked up a passenger. He's resting up at the moment, but he should be up and about by dinner."
Less than ten minutes later the Sisyphus had lifted off from Kitchener Docks, headed toward the planet Jiangyin and the crew's next assignment. Shannon, Jared and Sarika were off on their jobs around the ship – Shannon on the bridge steering their course, Sarika in the kitchen sorting out the rest of the day's meals, and Jared in engineering ensuring all was running smoothly.
Meanwhile, Taylor was stretched out on a bed in one of the passenger dorms, shirtless and with an icepack strapped to his left side, staring up at the ceiling. Scattered around him on the bed and the floor were all of his worldly possessions.
It had taken him until the Sisyphus had departed Greenleaf to realise that he was now homeless. His entire life, what was left of it anyhow, was spelled out in the contents of his messenger bag and the pockets of his jacket and jeans – his wallet, his iPod, his laptop, his phone, a couple of books, a notebook and pens, and all manner of knick-knacks belonging to Rhiannon and Lucas. He had no money, no way of contacting home (or of even getting home that he could tell), and no clothes or shoes save those that had been on his back and feet when he had arrived in the future. And he was acutely aware that once he had healed up, there was absolutely no guarantee that he would be welcome aboard the ship any longer.
"Taylor?"
He looked over at the doorway to see Sarika standing there with a tray in her hands, one laden down with a bowl, a plate and a mug.
"I thought you might be hungry," she explained. "May I come in?"
"Oh, yeah, of course," Taylor consented, and slowly sat himself up. "Sorry about the mess."
"Fàngxin," Sarika said almost dismissively, her tone cheerful. "I got myself a brother and a little sister, so I'm used to a bit of untidiness." She set the tray down on the floor and cleared herself a spot on the bed before sitting down. "So I know your name," she said as she bent down for the tray, "but not where you're from or anything else. Feel like spilling the beans?"
Taylor was silent for a few moments as he studied the contents of the tray. The bowl had noodles and vegetables in it with a pair of chopsticks alongside, while the plate held what looked suspiciously like dumplings. A quick sip from the mug revealed its contents as green tea.
"It isn't much," Sarika confessed quietly.
"It's great," Taylor assured her. "And I'm absolutely starving. Thank you." He gave Sarika a smile, and was rewarded in kind. "I was born in Los Angeles," he said to begin with, not even thinking about his words – at that moment, he was more concerned with sating his hunger.
"Oh, Angel City?" Sarika asked. Taylor noted that she sounded excited about this. "I've always wanted to go there – I've heard it's a beautiful place."
Taylor shrugged. "It's okay, I suppose. I don't mind it – it's busy, sure, but I think it will always be home, no matter where it is that I find myself."
"Do you have family?" was Sarika's next question. "I mean, aside from your father."
Taylor nodded, swallowing his mouthful of noodles and vegetables before replying. "My mom's a doctor, and I've got two brothers and a sister – their names are Isaac, Zac and Jessica. Isaac's in the military like our dad was, Zac teaches Chemistry at a high school in L.A., and my sister's in college." He put the bowl down and took up the plate of dumplings. "I'm married as well – got two kids with another on the way." With one hand he touched his wedding band – in that moment he missed Caroline and the kids more than ever, and he knew that there was a chance he would never see them again. "What about you?"
"Oldest of three," Sarika replied. "Brother's name is Zacharias, and my sister's Jesinta. My ma ‘n' pa're horse breeders and wranglers over on Paquin. I'm the first of my family to go travelling the ‘Verse." This last sentence was said in a proud tone of voice.
Well, I'm completely lost, Taylor thought as he sipped his tea. She could be speaking Greek for all that I can understand her. "How long have you been travelling?"
"Almost three-and-a-half years. I left home a week after my eighteenth birthday – Jared and Shannon were on the hunt for a cook, and Ma made sure I started learning the ins and outs of a kitchen soon as I could hold a stylus. She also taught me a bit of basic first aid. I keep those two fed and patched up, and in return they make sure I get somewhere to sleep and a cut of their take from a job."
"Do you miss home?"
Sarika shrugged. "Sometimes. Jared and Shannon understand how important home and family are, though, and they miss theirs sometimes too. Whenever we don't have jobs lined up, if we're not too far out of the way they drop me off on Paquin for a week or two on their way back home. Rest of the time, I'm usually able to wave my family if I'm in need of a familiar face or two. We try and keep within Cortex range as much as we can, but if not then I can always write ‘em a letter." She smiled a little mysteriously. "As you can likely tell, I have my ways."
Taylor barked out a quiet laugh. "Oh yes, I think I can tell."
A chime sounded from a speaker mounted high on a wall of the dorm as Taylor finished eating, followed by Jared's voice. "Sarika, could you and Taylor come up to the kitchen please?"
Sarika stood and picked up the tray again, now piled with empty dishes. "He probably just wants to tell you the ship rules," she said as Taylor unstrapped the icepack from his side and shrugged his shirt back on. "You'll be able to come back here if you want to when he's done."
She was right, as it turned out. Both Jared and Shannon stood in the kitchen area, with Sarika joining them upon entering. Taylor took a seat at the scrubbed wooden table and prepared himself to listen.
"We don't have very many rules on the ship," Jared said to begin, "but what rules we do have, we ask that you follow them to the best of your ability. Cargo bay, engineering, the armoury, the infirmary, crew bunks and the bridge are all off-limits unless you're escorted by a crew member. Kitchen's open around the clock – main meal's at five-thirty every evening, but you should feel free to grab a bite to eat at any other time if you're hungry. Keep your showers short when we're flying, as we don't carry much water while we're in the air – save the long soaks for when we're in port. And no walking around barefoot and half-naked – clothing and shoes are to be worn at all times."
Taylor couldn't help but note that Jared looked directly at Sarika when he said this last part.
"Basically, don't be a rutting idiot and we'll get along just fine. I believe that about covers it – oh yeah, that's right," he amended hurriedly when Shannon gave him a poke in the side. "Whenever we're in port for a job, no leaving the ship without an escort. That escort will normally be Sarika unless she's tagging along with us, in which case you'll need to stay on the ship."
"Got it," Taylor said with a nod.
"We'll be at Jiangyin in around thirteen-and-a-half hours," Shannon said, taking up his brother's thread. "Until then, do as you wish provided it's within regulations. Dinner will be in around four or five hours." He gave Taylor a smile before turning tail and heading back through to the bridge.
"As you wish," Taylor murmured, before rubbing at his eyes with the heel of his right hand. All the fuss and excitement of the day was beginning to catch up with him, and the adrenaline he had been running on for the last couple of hours had very nearly worn off. With more than half a day of travel before him, his bed and a good healing sleep were calling his name.
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Translations
Mandarin:
ni meí shì bà?: are you okay?
zenme le?: what's going on?
xièxie ni: thank you
fàngxin: don't worry about it
Slang:
shiny: good, great, wonderful (essentially any positive adjective)
‘Verse: universe
rutting: fucking