(This is only the second draft of the book Worthless. Expect typos, plot holes, odd subplots and the occassionally wrongly named character, especially minor characters. It is made public only to give people a rough idea of how the final story will look)

Chapter 58

"Are you okay for this" asked Daniel with some skepticism in his voice.
"Are you #*@!ing insane?!" followed Kris, his skepticism sounding a lot more like frustration or even anger. "You're barely alive at this point. You wanna go to the future as a chunky paste of former human body?"
He was clearly being serious, very much so, in spite of the odd delivery. He looked ready to punch someone in the face, though it was a bit unclear whom.
"I can handle th..."
"No, Marie. No, you #*@!ing cant," he insisted. "You've beaten your body to a bloody pulp over the years, but even for you, this is pushi..."
"I get it!"
Both of them were taken a bit aback by the sudden outburst, judging from their faces.
"Look, I get it, I am, after all, the one living in this body."
In spite of their obvious impulses to object, they were quiet.
"I know the risks, I know I'm technically still on medical, but..."
It was hard to defend, in so many ways. Especially as someone who had actually trained new recruits and emphasized, nay threatened, that there were only so many things the human body could handle when it came to time travel. And those recruits had not been bouncing around time like a bunny on crack for a good while!
"Look, everything is right there before us. We just need to put the pieces together."
Oddly enough, they seemed to almost be calming down. Relative to the situation, of course. For Kris in particular, going to throw pipe bombs at a schoolyard could be considered calming down, if the look on his face was any indication.
"Something happened. Something actually split time at some point, probably somewhere in the 1700s. I just need to..."
There it was again. The doubt. The nagging sensation that things like motives were getting muddled. A subconscious agenda bubbling up.
"I need to know. I need to know what we built all of this for."
It wasn't a lie. The need to know was like a ferocious monster, clawing its way through flesh and bone, wanting to burst out and devour everyone.
"If we don't understand what that woman in white did all this for, then we are still back there. Back in the mud, just fighting to hang on."
The melodrama was sneaking in, so thick it felt like sirup oozing from some deep, internal demon. Pathos. Playing on their fears, their emotions. The pure need to know was not enough, it needed drama.
"This way, we flip the script. Turn the tables, get out in front of her."
The words were doing their thing, massaging their way into their minds and causing their emotions to switch around. It wasn't just about the need to know now, it was about survival, about the greater cause. It was about The Embassy, and not just a burning question that needed to be put out.
"You're going through the boosters, right?"
It was Daniel asking, while Kris simply threw his hands in the air and made muffled, vaguely cursing sounds.
"Every last one. Not gonna risk anything that isn't absolutely necessary."
"Yeah, right, you're the epitome of cau..."
He never got to finish. Daniel had already started the devil fingers, and before the old man could finish his words, the world lit up into a blinding flash.
As the blinding part cleared and the pain subsided, the room was a different place. It looked like the inside of a large container. Mostly because, technically, it was.
"2146, May 4th, 15:18"
The information was on the wall, literally, in fairly large lightboards. Still, the young woman in the reconfigured hazmat suit felt a need to say it out loud.
"I'm just..."
The damned of it was, Kris was absolutely right. Of course he was, he knew the physics of time travel and the effects on the human body better than anyone else at The Embassy. He knew that the damage from all those trips was collecting in every joint and tendon, that being ripped in and out of time had changed enough molecules to rival toxic exposure.
"Sorry, a bit dizzy..."
"That's okay," the woman explained politely. She had to be new at this branch. She had no idea who she was talking to. "Its a very normal side effect of time travel. We have some tonics that can..."
"Yup, load me up!"
Interrupting her that crudely spooked the polite smile off her face, and she nervously rushed into an adjacent room.
2146. Not long after Heavenfall. Sections of orbital stations should still be dropping from the skies, most never burning up more than badly scorched and twisted exteriors, their valuable technologies often making it to the surface, and some even suviving the impact. That could not be said for things in their way during the fall.
The place looked like the remains of some fancy shopping mall, rounded walls and no windows, likely a floor beneath the ground. Many architects never knew how much their creations were like the bunkers of more warring times. There had been modifications, of course, with plenty of tech being brought in. And in the center, the time travel platform, the rest of the machine around it. Built from parts acquired in shady deals with time travel renegades and their often impressive organizations.
"Here, drink slo..."
She had no idea how to react, and the contents of the bottle were gone before she could think of anything.
"I'm good to go."
She wasn't moving. Recruits in future or past offices were almost always natives, unlike many at the main office in 2019, who were refugees recruited back into time travel, often with a desperate need to understand the role of themselves and their situation in the greater scheme of things. A need for answers. Not an unfamiliar concept, honestly.
"I think I should call the..."
"Gerhan, is that you by the controls?"
A short man, slightly balding and a bit too thin, perked up.
"Gerhan, start this thing up."
He looked around a bit uneasily, but then nodded.
"Yes, Marie," he casually called out. Hearing the name, something shifted in the eyes of the young woman, as if some great secret had been revealed to her. Before anything could come of it, she was gone, along with the room, the bulding, and the world around it.
2309. A sleek display surrounding the time machine said so. It said date, time and location, too, instantly informing an arriving time traveler, lessening the impact and likely confusion. But the details were unimportant.
"You, the... what are you, arrival guide?"
The man in the blue and grey lab coat kind of outfit looked up from a screen that only he could see. Implants, very handy, but it took only a bit of experience to notice them, and that quickly made the whole thing seem tacky, like a cell phone at a funeral.
"The guide is coming, miss," said the man, his eyes shifting between spots that he seemed convinced that would occur from.
"Time tech? Logistics? Come on, give a girl a hint."
He cracked a nervous smile. He looked 30-something, but this was an age of quality surgery and rejuvenating technologies. He could be any age. Few time travelers actually thought about the fact that the rooms around a time machine were often designed to display the age. It was a subtle idea, to always put a sense of their new world in the minds of the less trained, and to let the veterans keep better track of complicated jumps.
"Medical. Are you f..."
"Oh #*@!ing great!"
Standing up was an effort. It felt like defying some natural law of either physics or biology, or both. Everything felt heavy and limp.
"Medical, throw me in the nearest cocoon!"
He acted fast, likely experienced with people more or less falling out of the time machine, likely in much worse shape. That thought made it less awkward to be dragged by him into an adjacent room and placed into what looked like a large pill capsule. Shutting with a meaty snap, it felt like a casket, like a coffin. Unlike a coffin, it seemed to come alive within moments of being shut. Little bits zipped along hair-thin rails inside, with larger things visible moving on the outside, through the semi-transparent material the entire thing seemed made of.
Then, waking!
The canopy of the coffin split and opened like someone cracking a large egg, making air circulate and changing the smell from stale sweat to ionized and static air. Neither air was bad, but the massive difference between the two was like a wall hitting the nose.
"We've cleaned up your..."
"I know what the thing does."
The man standing at a physical screen held by a thin metal arm looked up, then looked at the medical expert from earlier, who was standing beside him. That man nodded softly, looking a bit perplexed himself.
"I can walk, you don't need to..."
The medical expert stopped his attempt at support, silently walking out the room. There was no hallway, no grand network of rooms. Just a door leading right back to the time machine. This time, there were several more people in there.
"Are you back?" asked an older woman, standing by a small wall of screens. "We barely had time to set it up!"
"Yeah, sorry, in a bit of a rush, here."
She didn't like that remark, not one bit. But she made no protest. The machine started up with the familiar hum.
2482, according to the screen on the slightly dusty wall. The soft curves of the shopping mall, or whatever it was, were gone, as were the flashy screens and lights. Angles, straight lines, corners and dull colors. Military base.
"You okay in there?" asked a man in plain combat fatigues. He didn't sound worried, seeming more like it was a standard question of some kind.
"Yeah, I'm actually surprisingly fine!"
He smiled.
"I can see, coming from the early 2300s. Good time. Good tech," he mused, in that casually stern military tone.
"2482? That's machine country, right?"
He nodded, standing straight as a flagpole.
"It is. But don't worry, we're pretty buried here, mines all over the place upstairs."
"Easy, soldier, just getting my bearings. Are you clocking me out?"
He shook his head, nodding at someone inside a tinted glass cage.
"Great, let it rip!"
The room seemed to shake and dissolve, and the blinding light returned. It somehow felt less intense, though.
A large, well-lit room. Quiet, but with a touch of nature sounds.
2613. Large text on the softly lit, slightly green wall. Thin lines made the text seem crisp and sharp.
"Hello? Anyone there?"
There was a hum. Not a mechanical sound that resembled a hum, but an actual voice that made a quick hum, as if very pleased with something technically insignificant.
"Hello? I need to move on."
"Do you need access to the air or spaceport?" asked a disembodied voice, sounding very pleasant.
"No, time travel. I have a set schedule, you should have it."
"Yes, I do. Sorry about that, well get you right on your way, shall we!"
"Yes, we, uhm, shall. Please."
Post-war artificial intelligence. Always a bit weird to deal with, having evolved themselves to mimic humans a bit too much. To the right of the room, there was a window, twisting spires and odd architectures mixing in with more practical designs. This age was rather infamous for its weird influences from alliance with the machines, honestly.
Blinding light. It felt slightly like a punch to the gut. The cocoon's restoration was not handling things as nicely any longer. Soon, the pain would be coming back.
2851, a slightly more daring jump than the others. The number was just one of many hovering along the walls, a deep red grading into a lighter nuance all across the room. The time machine podium, however, was a dull white, like standing atop a wide marble pillar.
"Being directed," said a man whose age was impossible to tell, mainly because of his strong teal tint. It distracted and confused the brain. But the blinding light took those worries away.
3120. The time machine operators were getting more daring, extending the jumps. Jumping from platform to platform did provide far, far more safety, but it still felt like someone sneaking up on you, the growing risk they ran. The trip was largely Daniel's design, with Kris adding some tricks in, begrudgingly.
Everything was very bright. The time machine was at the end of a narrow, brilliantly white bridge, lined by a delicate, yellow light. Somehow, it seemed decorative, not functional. Decadent.
"Getting ready for relay," said a soft voice from nowhere in particular.
"No, wait!"
"Waiting," the voice confirmed.
"I need... I need medical. I need some minor medical resto.... restoration."
A wave seemed to roll along the surface of a bridge, before it burst through its surface and was actually two big, white caterpillars. It felt very strange to have them wrap themselves around every limb, but the uneasy was somehow never more than that. They stayed attached for maybe half a minute, then burrowed into the bridge again and disappeared.
"Medical restoration applied," said the voice.
"Yeah, thanks."
A gentle force seemed to push and pull around the open room around the bridge, and suddenly, the time machine had what it needed. The blinding light was very sharp, this time.
3379. A time of war. More correctly, another time of war. This one had a greater scope, spanning stars, but war nonetheless. It raged somewhere outside the large room that held the time machine.
No voice, just an odd feeling inside the head, as if someone was flipping through brain cells. Then, one more blinding light.