Dr. Elena Elizabeth Holt bribed her way into the still-experimental time machine one hundred thirty-one years in the future. The timer was set for one year: five minutes after passing through the machine in the future, Nola was supposed to press the recall button and Elena would return to her home with one year of her personal timeline lapsed. That was if everything worked correctly.

She had arrived seven days ago along her personal timeline. She had three-hundred fifty-eight days left to stop a pandemic that would kill forty-five percent of the world's population and disfigure or disable another twenty percent. More importantly to Elena, the L-5 flu had taken her entire family. Her siblings, parents, husband, and children - all of them had died horribly. She had three-hundred fifty-eight days left to save their lives.

There was nobody else. Nobody else desperate enough, nobody else with the knowledge, and more importantly, nobody else capable from the critical five percent. She was one of the five percent of the population with a complete natural immunity to the disease. She had spent months watching her family die, one by one. Spent months trying to save them. It hadn't worked. This might. Three hundred and fifty-eight days left to stop a pandemic before it could become so much as a sniffle on anyone's radar.

She had, as nearly as she could work out, four months before the first few victims of the L-5 strain would go to the hospitals. At first it would be treated like an ordinary variation of the influenza virus. After all, in this year that's all it was. Technically, this year it wasn't even the L-5 strain. It would be designated L-1 and display moderate to severe symptoms with oddly higher death rates in the child to young-teen populations. The initial patients would be given fluids and sent home. Most of the early sufferers didn't have the health insurance to receive better medications. Little thought would be given to this year's flavor of influenza.

Because of that, the L-1 strain descended through a hundred years, morphing and evolving. The L-5 strain of Elena's time was particularly virulent, resisted every attempt to kill it, and the initial vaccines actually created a weakness in the immune system that accelerated the disease's progress. Elena was no medical doctor, but she had a very good memory and a small notebook that contained the exact formula for the vaccine they had finally developed. Too late, too late. If she could get that formula to the scientists who could manufacture it early enough, there would be treatments available for those first patients. But better than that: the reason she'd come back so far, before her own birth. She had a natural immunity to the disease. Her genes carried a resistance that could be embedded into another common virus - rhinovirus, the common cold - and spread as easily as a cough. Gene therapy for a disease nobody knew about yet.

All she needed to do was find the correct people to develop the vaccine, to create the gene therapy, to get the cure to the public. That was her stumbling block. That was why she was walking along the street in front of Gira Pharmaceuticals, eying the glass-walled building and trying to figure out how to make contact with the scientists inside.

She never noticed another of the city's lost as he walked from place to place. Elena didn't see that in place of worn shoes, the man was wearing dirty boots more suited to a soldier than a vagrant. The man muttered into a cup of coffee while he walked.

Elena had brought cash with her, stowed in her backpack and pockets, antique currency for an antique time. She felt the loss of her embedded neural implant like a person might miss their sense of smell. In her day, the discreet implant at the back of her skull maintained a constant two-way connection to the 'Net. Information at a thought, a whole new sense to add to the traditional five. Now it was just a little lump of metal the size of one of the coins in her pocket, embedded beneath her skin and hair, useless. Normally it helped her keep aware of her surroundings.

She wasn't used to walking in a crowd without the help of her implant to warn her of collisions. That was the only excuse she had for the way she ricocheted off the man's shoulder and managed to splash the coffee in his hand over them both. "Oh, hell - sorry, sorry -" she reached up just to try to steady the man. "Are you all right?"

Startlingly blue eyes focused on her face when the man looked up. For a moment she thought he was about to hit her, he responded so quickly. "Hell" I am fine. The drink wasn't as hot as when I first got it from," he turned to look in the direction from which he came and pointed toward more faces, buildings, traffic and glass, "there. It was hot, but cools somewhat quickly."

Somewhere behind her eyes and the lines carved around her mouth by sorrow, there was a memory of easier smiles. She almost remembered how to give the man one of them as she tracked his point toward the faces, buildings, and the little coffee stand on the corner a block or so away. "I hate that." She did. Her cup at home - in the time she'd come from - came equipped with a little heating coil and thermocouple to maintain her coffee at perfect drinking temperature. "Well, let me buy you another to make up for spilling yours?"

The situation was perfect. Standing on the corner at the coffee cart would give her a chance to watch the Gira entrance for a little while without looking suspicious. His phrasing was a little strange to her, but it seemed like everybody sounded odd to her ears.

The man closed his eyes and seemed to consider her offer. She watched somewhat anxiously to see if he would agree to her proposal, and let out a tiny breath of relief when he opened his eyes again. "I- I would like that," he nodded his head and smiled.

The man's smile surprised her. It looked almost out of place, as if he didn't use it often. It coaxed hers into better life as she started walking toward the cart. "I don't know where my head was. I'm not usually so clumsy." She'd been a little bit off-kilter ever since she'd gone through the machine. Maybe her head was still lost in all those years. When she reached the coffee cart, she stood there for several seconds before she remembered she had to actually verbalize her order instead of simply transmitting it. "Coffee, cream and sugar, and - what did you have in yours?"

"I will take some of both, if there is no bother." The man wiped his hands on his dirty jeans while he looked around. It seemed like he was constantly looking around. Maybe he was a tourist or newly arrived in the city"

"Two coffees with cream and sugar, please." There was another awkward pause in the exchange before she blinked, reached into her pocket, and carefully counted out the bills and change for the vendor. The vendor was giving her an odd look: she'd had to take a few seconds to sort out which denomination coin was which. Still learning the local currency, damn it.

Once she'd paid, she took their cups and offered the man his. "My name is Elena, by the way. Sorry again about barreling into you like that." Her holster rasped against the side of her ribs when she shifted, but a brief glance down reassured her that her weapons were still concealed behind her leather jacket even though she'd had to unzip the coat against the heat of the day.

"Sergeant Glockner," The reply seemed automatic as he took the fresh cup from her. A recently separated soldier, maybe? Or one still on active duty' "Sebastian is my name." He lifted his cup to his lips and spoke once he lowered it a few seconds later. "You seemed in a rush."

"Military man." Elena was vaguely amused by his automatic answer and the haste with which he changed it. The amusement probably showed when she looked over at him, away from the front of the Gira Pharmaceuticals building. "Maybe not a rush, exactly. Distracted. I wasn't paying attention. It's nice to meet you, Sergeant Sebastian Glockner. Doctor Elena Holt for me if you're being formal - no, not medical doctor." She took a sip of her coffee and looked down at it with surprise. It was good. It was better than the coffee of her time, the cream and sugar real instead of artificial.

"A doctor?" He paused a second and then added, "I am no longer in the Corps."

"Oh, well, it's still nice to meet you, Sebastian. And yes, doctor - I'm a mathematician, so don't ask me to patch up any wounds. I don't even like the sight of blood." She'd seen too much of it in the hospitals, in the virus wards, when people started coughing their lungs to bits. A shadow washed across her face, and she hid it with another sip of the coffee. People had been moving in and out of the Gira building frequently, but they'd all used some sort of access badge. She needed to get one of those.

"Still, a Doctor is impressive, Elena." He took another sip and he shook his head slightly. "It is nice to meet you as well."

She knew that she was drawing out the conversation, making it last to give her time to keep watching the entrance. Beyond that....it was the first conversation that hadn't been about the flu or about finding some way to stop the flu that she'd had in months. "So are you from here?" She used the hand holding her coffee cup to gesture around vaguely toward the city.

He stopped mid sip, and looked at her with a slight shake of his capped head. "No Ma'am. I am recently arrived."

"Elena. We don't have to be formal - I spilled coffee on you." There was another ghost of a smile that didn't quite materialize. "Well, damn. I was going to ask if you could play tour guide. I've only been here a few days and I keep getting lost."

"I know the city from maps, surely it hasn't changed."

There was probably no better excuse to take another stroll past the front of the Gira building as they went on. "Well, if you'd like to take a guess - my hotel is on the corner of Seventh Street and Crown Ave. I know it's north of here but I'm not really sure where. I got turned around while I was exploring." Complete fiction, but it was an excuse.

Sebastian paused and turned in place for a moment, forcing Elena to pull up short as well. Eventually his hand rose and he pointed back the way they had come, away from the coffee cart, toward the heart of the city, past the Pharm Corp. "Shouldn't be far, this way."

"Well, lead the way." Light. Almost teasing. She surprised herself with how natural it sounded. She hadn't felt light or teasing since her family had become ill. She started walking at a casual stroll to give herself more time to look at the entrance. There were security guards just inside the glass doors. There was, when she turned her head the other way, a large temple with a gold-leafed roof across the street beyond the business parking lot. Visibility. People watching. Breaking in would be a bad idea, even if she had any idea how to do it.

His eyes had also fallen on that temple, but he did smile at her again. His eyes closed slowly again and she watched him with brief confusion. Then he shifted the weight of his backpack on his shoulders and started walking slowly in the direction he'd indicated. "Not every day you need a tour guide, I am sure."

"Not usually, no," she admitted. "If I weren't so new here it wouldn't be a problem. I'm only here for a year, in any case, on a project. What about you? Are you staying long?" She watched one of the men entering the Gira building holding the door for a delivery girl in a brown uniform. It gave her an idea, at least. Then she directed her attention toward Sebastian again.

"I am not sure how long I will be here." It seemed like an honest answer, very simple. "I sort of drift, Ma..Elena."

"Well, this seems like a good city to be drifting through." A year, minus the one week she'd already been in the city. Then she could go home, back to her time. The city was just a place to operate from.

"It is not like any other I have seen," He smiled again and sipped the coffee. "You aren't far from here."

At Sebastian's words, Elena paused at the corner and looked up the street. There was her hotel a couple of blocks away. "Hell of a tour guide - that's my hotel right there, the Majestic. Thanks, Sebastian." She switched her coffee to her left hand and held out her right in an offer to shake. It pulled back the sleeve of her jacket a little bit, revealing the edges of the tattoo on her inner wrist. "Maybe we'll run into each other again."

He looked at her hand and then a firm shake was given in return. "Thank you for the coffee, and I do hope that our paths cross again, Elena." He smiled, and then after he released her hand he touched his forehead with his fingertips. "Walk with the Knowledge."

She blinked her surprised reaction. It was an odd sort of farewell, one she hadn't seen or heard before. A brush of her fingertips against the cross suspended from its gold chain around her neck and another smile later, she finally just answered with, "Take care of yourself." One last look - he reminded her of Ryan (the thought stung and she almost closed her eyes against the pain) - and then she turned her steps up the street toward her hotel without as much as a look back. For Ryan. She was doing this for Ryan, for Caleb and Rebecca, for her parents and sisters, nieces and nephews.

She didn't look back to see the lifted hand that went with the quiet, "Take care," from behind.

((Adapted from live play with Sebastian Glockner))

The temple was the cleanest part of the area that Sebastian's command had been in since his return from the Cleansed Land of LA. The War between ARIS and The Alliance had gotten to the point of a stalemate, so at the last moment Alliance were recalled before the area was cleansed by righteous fire. ARIS wanted the area as it was prime for recruitment, The Church saw it as the new Babylon, too late to be saved. For over four years Sebastian fought side by side with now dead men, and even lost some of his own blood there, only to have it lost by political decisions. "Identify, please." One of the guards commanded as Sebastian reached the top of the long, white stairs that lead to the temple. Weapons were pointed at him from automated guard towers, and the two soldiers like himself that watched the building.

"Captain Six - Six - One - Eight - Five," He answered loudly to be picked up by the voice recognition, and in a moment the weapons pointed his way lowered.

"Go with The Knowledge, Captain." One of the guards said as they both snapped a salute at their superior.

"Go with The Knowledge," Seb's reply seemed robotic even to him, but the salute was real enough.

He walked through the wide entry of the temple following the path of plush, red carpeting that led to the bank of elevators which led to different areas depending on ranking, and invitation. Seb's floor would be near the top, as Holiness had invited him.

"Captain." A voice came over the speaker near the elevators. "Holiness has asked you to join him at eighty-five. Go with Knowledge." The doors slid open, allowing his entrance into the highly polished surroundings. He turned to face the doors as they closed, adjusted his weapons, and hoped this meeting was brief.

Sebastian stepped out into a round, large room. Opposite the elevators was a floor to ceiling wall of glass that offered a stunning view of the city below. Ever since he could remember, he'd loved being in high places, and looking around at the world below, and now he resisted an urge to walk to the glass, and look straight down.

"Captain Six - Six..."

"I know who you are, Captain Sebastian Thomas Glockner be at ease, here." A voice came from a dark corner, and when Seb turned to look in the direction of the voice, his screens went down, only to flash, "Restricted Information. Access Denied." "Please Captain, remove your helmet and let us discuss your file."

Sebastian did as asked, but the thought of going through his file was worrisome. He had already lost a rank to his current standing as Captain, and hoped he was not about to be demoted again. He reached up and tapped the connection on the side of the helmet, then tapped the code on the back of his wrist-pad, before the helmet was able to be lifted from his head.

"Ah, Captain Glockner! Nice to 'see" you," The man laughed as he stepped from the shadows and into a brighter light.

His white robe dragged the floor as he walked toward Sebastian, and as he got closer, everything played through the soldier's head. Let Holiness come to you. As he approaches, kneel and wait for him to touch your shoulder and ask you to rise. Follow two steps behind when he walks away, should he ask you to join him. Should you think there is an assassin, remain vigilant, and lay down your life to save His Holiness.

Sebastian blinked from his thoughts as he felt the slight change in weight on his armored shoulder and heard the man's voice, "Follow me, Captain." He immediately fell into step at the proper space behind him toward a massive desk.

"I'm sorry I didn't have time to dress properly to meet with you, Holiness. I was on assignment, cleaning our streets." He stopped when the man lifted his hand in a calming motion. His attention moved to the shimmer behind the leader as his latest arrest was playing, then flashed through the prior arrests and actions.

"We have been monitoring your progress, Sebastian. Since the loss of your family, you've not missed one day and have, in fact, been doing double the duty required." Sebastian frowned with the mention of Tania, Mara, and Sebastian, Jr. "For three years now, you've been as a machine, instead of one of The Creator's Chosen."

"Four years, Sir." Sebastian gently corrected.

"You've been taking unnecessary risks, requesting more than even a double shift, and trying to forgo your own down time."

"Sir, the nightmares come if I am asleep. The memories, if I am allowed my own time."

"Are you trying to push yourself so much that you make a mistake so u can join them' Perhaps not honor the memory of your loving wife and children?" The older man asked as he leveled his gaze on the younger soldier.

Sebastian met the gaze bravely, but had to look away as the pain of loss shot through him. He could still feel the concussion of the blast that threw him backward into the armored side of his vehicle, the shrapnel that was blown into his chest and left leg, and the searing flesh of his right hand as he reached for the burning bodies of his family.

He was in surgery when the men of his command found the bomber, a local man swayed by the influence of ARIS, used as a pawn to send messages to several of the command that had captured one of their main installations. The man, John Tucker, was found at an illegal bar, boasting about the credits made, and status gained for killing one of The Alliance's high ranking officer's family. "Even the Crusaders aren't untouchable!" He was quoted saying before being put to death for his crimes.

"I am good at my job, Sir." Sebastian finally answered. "I keep our city clean."

"You and your command, you mean?" "Yes, Sir, the command and I."

"You were in for the title of Crusader, Sebastian. What happened?"

"His Holiness should have that information in the files."

"I do have it, but I am asking you as it was never stated, what happened?" The man's voice was soft, and full of concern.

"Captain Agar made a comment about my wife and family, Sir."

"You broke his neck; that must have been some comment." There were no judging tones in the man's voice, just a hint of concern.

"Sir, Crusaders are trained assassins. Agar was a threat."

"To the temple or to your pride?"

"Pride is one of the Seven, Sir."

"Are you teaching me, Captain?" He saw the man's white brows rise, and Sebastian shook his head.

"No Sir, I am just stating that Pride isn't a trait of the Crusader."

"Have a seat, Son." The old man finally said as he lowered into the gold chair behind the desk. After he was settled, Sebastian sat down in the oak chair opposite. "Why did you not continue with the Crusader Program?"

"I was asked not to, Sir." Sebastian was growing tired of questions that already held answers in his file. "No disrespect meant Holiness, but is there a reason for this line of questioning?"

"Your file states that Colonel Franz retracted his comments of you not being ready for the Crusade."

"My command needed their leader, Sir." Seb's jaw tightened as he ground his molars while waiting for an answer.

"And the Crusaders are not on a patrol through Cleansed Lands or in other dangerous places as much as those in command, right?" Sebastian nodded a silent answer. "Colonel Franz also praised you for your directness, as I've seen when you asked if I had a reason for my questions."

Sebastian was in disbelief at those words. Franz was a hard, fair leader but complimenting on such a thing wasn't something anyone would believe.

"I shall pay my respects and thank him at his rest later then, Sir."

The old man smiled, and then folded his hands on top of the desk as he leaned forward. "How would you like a chance to save your family?" Sebastian said nothing, but felt a lump rising in his throat. If this was a joke, he didn't find the humor.

"The other leaders and I, as well as the hierarchy have need of you, Captain. The technology is ours after some research, to send you back in time."

Sebastian swallowed hard at the lump in his throat. "I thought it was forbidden to change past events. and that travel back hasn't been proven yet, as none has returned."

"The Church has received reliable information that the travel does indeed work, Captain, but it is a one way trip."

"How would this save my family' My wife and children?"

"All of your family Sebastian, your mother and father as well." Seb couldn't remember their faces, but he remembered the night he spent hiding with them and other families in a building that collapsed. "We have sent men back into various points of time, some as far back as when The Son walked the earth."

"How do you know they made it, Sir?"

"They've left us things, notes, codes, detailed maps all matter of things that are being discovered to this day." He paused as he watched Sebastian thinking things over, "Smythe and ARIS have also captured this technology, I don't need to explain how this could affect us."

"How" I thought we controlled all jump points..." Sebastian was in disbelief.

"We thought we had them all, but recently one was discovered that was believed to be destroyed. The last jump was sent to 2016.?

There were flashes of wagons, images of past wars and times of great celebrations. Sebastian saw many things as he spiraled backward through time. It was almost as if he could step to the side and join the people he passed. He wondered if Holiness recalled him to the future, there would be newer technology able to track him down. Seb's guides had told him it would be a one-way trip. Yet, even after all he had seen, done, and lost; it still had taken a while to make his decision. He was heading back to a time that he only knew of from reading texts and from books now banned by The Church and all Followers. He was not even sure who he was looking for, but stepping into the machine, he watched, as his world of darkness, became something lighter and more alive. " They planned his arrival outside of one of the major cities. An open field, which had existed in old maps, prevented him from fusing with anything that was there in the past. A sidearm, currency from this time, and the clothes on his back were all he had. That and the knowledge he was out to change, and possibly save his world.

Supposedly, around this time is when the flu strain hit, and they were thinking this was when someone came back to stop it. Indeed, an unnamed person had already traveled back to stop a particular nasty strain of Flu, one Sebastian had not heard of, the L-5 that had affected sixty-five percent of the world's population, either by death, or disablement. Theorists were undecided if the target Class V was male or female, so he had no way of knowing who it was, even if he ran into him or her. Regardless, by the Class V's actions of saving people, he or she had allowed the rise of Lord Smythe and ARIS. There were rumors that the traveler had learned of a small percentage of people that held a natural immunity to the disease. Seb wondered if by some small chance, they had been responsible for sending one of their own back, someone that held a natural cure. After all, if he were planning it, that is how he would have done it.

Sebastian fell to the ground with a solid hit. So solid that he had lost his breath for a short while. After regaining his composure, he sat up to get his bearings, gauging directions by instinct, and the sun. To the East was the city, and gauging from the structures, his landing was on target. He had spent hours, reading and watching old newsreels on this timeline, but looking at the reality of it now, it was somehow different.

He had taken what he expected to need for a light and mobile lifestyle, a backpack for some extra clothing, supplies, the boots on his feet, and clothing over his uniform. Most people would view him as homeless, and that was fine with Seb.

The shelters he found were not clean enough, the smell alone made him ill, and their food preparation was not to flavor, but to nourish many people and was barley tolerable at best. He would sleep in city parks and other prohibited places, because he did not want to be one of the first ones to catch the virus, as it seemed to start with the lower class before it bloomed into a full pandemic."Seb did remain vigilant; even when he slept it was light at best. No one noticed another of the city's lost as he walked from place to place. The trained eye would see that in place of tattered shoes, there were dirty boots, not worn-out, but comfortable to a soldier. The travel had fogged his mind, as warned, but pieces of information were coming back. Faces, places, and names, while hazy were starting to make sense again. Identities of a few Pharmaceutical Companies of this era came to him, but there was no way to remember them all. Most of all, the paranoia, which he expected in the first seventy-two hours, made reasoning difficult.

Seb muttered into a cup of coffee while walking, his mind raced while he worked to remember the important details, then it dawned on him, what he was drinking. A forbidden drink from his time; one considered illegal, a stimulant, known to cause rapid heartbeat, nervousness, a lack of focus, and one that he always wondered about. The taste was not one of great pleasure to him, but since he was out of the Church's rule, it was on a list of things he wanted to try.

There were places to buy everything imaginable, including items deemed illegal in his time. The only problem was trying to get used to handing people the right currency, instead of a scanner for implants that held all valuable and personal information for feeds into the city's main data banks.

Gira was one of the tallest buildings in the area. Glass seemed to reflect the color of the sky around it, and Seb wondered if the architects had built it that way for a reason. Perhaps the intent was to keep attacks minimal, allowing a safe, clean haven to distribute medicines through the wars. Sebastian was looking upwards, admiring the structure for its unique style when someone suddenly bounced off his shoulder, splashing his coffee over his hand and arm, as well as onto her shirt and denim covered legs.

"Oh, hell - sorry, sorry," she reached up just to try to steady the homeless man. "Are you all right?"

Sebastian's blue eyes focused on her face, one of many in an ever-changing wave of people, before the heat of the liquid registered on his hand and she reach for him. The soldier in him assessed her quick movement as hostile. His first instinct was to take the threat down, but quickly realized she was only trying to help.

"Hell?" The word resonated through him, the first person to speak to him, mentioned Hell. All the ways to get there played through his mind as he remembered The Order of the Cross, and its ways of teaching the youth. "I am fine, the drink wasn't as hot as when I first got it from," he turned to look in the direction from which he came, "there." He pointed toward more faces, buildings, traffic, and glass. "It was hot, but cooled somewhat quickly."

He did not fail to notice that she was attractive. In his time, he was a soldier, and even through all the recording devices, he could still remember a face without the need of a playback. She had dark eyes, like rain soaked onyx. Lines around her mouth, showed a lack of smiles for quite some time in her life, though she offered him one as he pointed the direction of where he had bought the coffee.

"I hate that," she said. "Well, let me buy you another to make up for spilling yours?" She looked at him for a moment, then at the building he had been watching, before another quicksilver flash of a smile crossed her face.

A strange woman, offering to buy him coffee set off warnings in his head, but his instincts and something about her smile, said she could be trusted. Seb forced his eyes to close as he tried to remember what it was like to talk to someone not in his command, and more so one of the fairer sex.

"I....I would like that." surprisingly finding his own smile when he realized she had handed him another opportunity to study the guards of Gira without being obvious.

"I don't know where my head was. I'm not usually so clumsy."

Seb observed her as she reached the coffee cart, and wondered why she stood there for several seconds, saying nothing, but watching the clerk. "Coffee, cream and sugar, and "what did you have in yours?" She turned to ask, and in that moment, reminded Seb how much he missed his wife.

She mentioned cream and sugar, neither illegal in his time, but certainly not available on the corner with a cart. He tried not to laugh thinking about his Great- great- grandparents; how they must have loved this time and the amenities they had.

"I will take some of both, if there is no bother." He decided that if no one were guarding the cart later in the evening, he was going to come back for some more of each.

Seb wiped his hands on his dirty jeans, a deliberate choice to cover his uniform, which was clearly worthless here, and to blend in more with his surroundings. Instead of hiding in plain sight as so many did in the wars of cities such as these, now he found out that he had to stick to cover, and offers of deep shadow. He watched her, studying her behavior, as well as others nearby. It was imperative that he learn their mannerisms to blend in, before cleaning up his act, and asking questions. "Two coffees, please, with cream and sugar." There was another awkward pause before she blinked, reached into her pocket, carefully counting out the bills and change for the vendor. Seb noticed the way the vendor gave her odd looks while she counted out her currency, but thought nothing of it as she approached him with fresh coffee. "My name is Elena, by the way. Sorry again about barreling into you like that."

Seb studied her while she spoke. It was warm, yet she wore a jacket over shirt, jeans, and hiking boots, making her appear more of a tourist than one of the suits who worked in this area of the city. Automatically replying, "Sergeant Glockner," as he took the fresh cup from Elena, he quickly attempted to cover his military training by softening his answer, "Sebastian is my name."

She was peculiar compared to the others he had observed, who paid for coffee with plastic cards, credit cards he remembered them called. He glance at his hand, where the chip had been implanted for his identification, location, access to secured areas, his own apartment, and even pay never seen, but available through most readers at vendors and other places. There were no signs of any such thing at the coffee cart. Lifting his cup and after a burnt lip, Seb found his voice again, "You seemed in a rush."

"Military man," she sounded amused when she looked over to him. "Maybe not a rush, exactly, more distracted, and I wasn't paying attention. It's nice to meet you, Sergeant Sebastian Glockner. I'm Doctor Elena Holt if we are being formal, and no, not medical doctor."

Elena's words caught his attention. "A doctor?" Where he was from, doctors were some of the higher echelons of society. "I am no longer in the Corps."

"Oh, well, it's still nice to meet you, Sebastian, and yes, doctor. I am a mathematician, so do not ask me to patch up any wounds. I don't even like the sight of blood."

*Patching up wounds" How barbaric. They evidently had not come up with the stimpacks, and nanite microbes to get the wounded, even near fatal up in less than an hour, before sending them back to the fields.*

"Still a Doctor is impressive, Elena, it is nice to meet you as well." He did consider that she might have been one of the first mathematicians to start theorizing on the possibility of traveling.

"So are you from here?" She used the hand holding her coffee cup to gesture around vaguely toward the city.

He stopped mid sip, and looked at her with a slight shake of capped head. "No Ma'am. I am recently arrived."

"Elena, please. We don't have to be formal since I spilled coffee on you." There was evidence of another ghost of a smile that did not quite materialize. "Well, damn. I was going to ask if you could play tour guide. I've only been here a few days and I keep getting lost."

"I know the city from maps, surely it hasn't changed, "Sebastian offered, thinking it would give him time to study more people, and hold a conversation with someone who wasn't looking down her nose at him, yet.

"Well, if you'd like to take a stab at it, my hotel is on the corner of Seventh Street and Crown Ave. I know its north of here but I am not sure where. I got turned around while I was exploring."

Facts they had loaded into him and those he had read came to him slowly, but basic training taught him that her hotel was back the way they had come, away from the coffee cart, toward the heart of the city. His hand rose and he pointed that general direction, past the Pharm Corp. "Shouldn't be far, this way." "Well, lead the way." Elena said in a light, teasing tone.

His eyes fell on a temple, but he did smile at her again. Something around her eyes reminded him of better times, of his Daniella, when their lives were happy and full of life. Closing his eyes, he pushed those memories deeper. Seb shifted the weight of the pack he had 'found' and started walking slowly in the direction she indicated.?"Not every day you need a tour guide, I am sure."

"Not usually, no," she admitted. "If I weren't so new here it wouldn't be a problem. I'm only here for a year in any case, on a project. What about you? Are you staying long?"

"I am not sure how long I will be here." It was an honest answer. The Class V he was searching for could very well be the death of him, or they could have been off in calculation, and he was even in the wrong city. "I sort of drift, Ma...Elena."

"Well, this seems like a good city to be drifting through."

"It is not like any other I have seen, and I don't think your lodging is far from here." They walked along in silence for a bit, both seemed lost in thoughts. He had no idea what was on her mind, but he wondered what the Class V was like, or if he would even make it to see his next birthday. He decided he would also be very glad when his mind cleared completely and he lost these random thoughts.

"Hell of a tour guide, that's my hotel right there, the Majestic. Thanks, Sebastian." She switched her coffee to her left hand and held out her right in an offer to shake. It pulled back the sleeve of her jacket a little bit, revealing the edges of the tattoo on her inner wrist. "Maybe we'll run into each other again."

He looked at her hand, noticing the edge of ink, and then gave a firm shake in return. "Thank you for the coffee and I do hope our paths cross again, Elena." After releasing her hand, he smiled and touched his forehead with fingertips. "Walk with the Knowledge."

"Take care of yourself." She seemed sad when she said the farewell.

He watched her go, and then thought himself an idiot. A customary farewell for his time could make him look like one of the fanatics of this one. He watched her go, something seemingly familiar, but not quite the same with her. he briefly considered that maybe she could help him, if he tried to explain who he was, and what he was doing, but that went against everything his guides had forewarned him about doing. A shake of head, he then a lifted hand, "Take care." Sebastian turned on booted heel, and made his way back the return way. The Pharm Corp held a memory, but it was still just out of his mind's eye.