Time Traveler Part I (Feeling Like The World Forgot Me)

Chapter 2

The human they'd woken called himself Ben. It was amazing that he was still alive after all this time. Cryo was all well and good, but it just wasn't reliable after several centuries. The technology way back then was far too primitive.

Patty had found some old clothes for Ben and they'd given him some privacy to get dressed while they searched the small lab for salvageable goods and discuss their strange find.

"How long do you think he's been in there?" Foley wondered aloud as he pried open a cupboard with a lock too rusted to pick.

"Since before the Light Age," Ali replied confidently, examining the gurney in the middle of the room for useful mechanical pieces.

Foley's cupboard surrendered to the crowbar with a metallic groan. "Really?"

"Well the Beast has had this area blocked off about that long, hasn't it? We're only here now because this part of it's withering away." He gestured up at the rotting tendrils on the ceiling as if to prove his point.

"This must be weird for him," Patty murmured, looking over an ancient terminal and half hoping that if he got it working it would give him all the answers, "He can't have meant to be frozen this long and now everything he knows is gone."

"So what do we do now?" Foley asked as he moved on to the next cupboard, "I don't think we can just leave him, he'll probably go mad seeing all our futuristic technology."

"His immune system will be weak, I doubt he'll last longer than twenty rotations," Ali said, "Especially since he can't be quarantined the way long term cryo users need to be."

"He could stay with us, then," Patty suggested, giving up on the terminal. It was far too old to even be recognisable as a computer. He stood and looked at the door to Ben's storage room. "We can at least make him comfortable until..." Foley and Ali looked away. There was no need to finish that sentence. "I'll ask him what he wants to do."

The door didn't have any distinctive markers that separated it from the rest of the wall, it even had a shelf attached to it. They probably would never have even noticed it if the Beast hadn't pried it open long ago. Patty wondered if that was a popular design choice back when the station had been built.

Ben was now dressed in the white gown they'd found for him. Foley had put him in a desk chair after helping him out of the cryo reheating unit since he seemed too weak to walk on his own, and Ben had since wheeled it over to a cabinet. He was now looking at a file, angling it toward the light of the torch they'd left.

"Who else knows about this place?" he asked, not looking up as Patty approached.

"Just us," Patty said, "Why?"

Ben frowned at the file, then put it back in the cabinet and pulled out another. "Could it stay that way for a while?"

Patty looked back at the door, where Ali and Foley now watched them. Foley gave a shrug.

"There might be something about me here," Ben explained, "Something I wouldn't want anyone else to find."

"Uh...okay?"

"Thank you."

Patty dragged a small crate over and sat. "You probably don't have anywhere to stay, right?"

"Probably not."

He glanced at Ali and Foley again. "Well, we'd hate to leave you on your own while you're recovering from cryo. Our place is nearby, you can stay with us until you're back on your feet."

Ben looked amused. "It's a space station, everything's nearby."

What was that supposed to mean?

"We'll probably have enough to keep you fed after we sell everything we got today," Patty continued, "I mean, you're not gonna need that cryo oil anymore, are you?"

Ben smiled dryly, putting his file back and shutting the drawer. "I suppose not."