The Business of Time Travel Tourism

Chapter 20: The Book of Orders

 June 30, 2014. Monday.

"Talk, alien! What planet do you come from? Zeta nine, Trax three?" An angry, troubled elderly man with giant beeping headphones on his head and a long wide microphone in his hand slapped the lost king and extended the microphone to Dang's face. They sat in an empty room with only two chairs, a table and a mirror on the wall, going almost through the whole length of it.

"What's a planet?" asked the gray man.

"I dare you to play dumb with me once again. I dare you! I've seen lots of you monsters, but not one had been so disgusting, stupid and ugly like you." The elder lifted his hand up with intent to slap again.

But Dang did not twitch. He showed no fear of physical violence. In truth, he did not even know what violence was. For him, physical pain and abuse were a part of the daily life. He said, "I'm from here, I came from the new times, far away."

"Speak in your own tongue so I could understand! Clearly some of your words are lost in translation. Explain where you come from in your own language!"

A series of random letters spilled out of Dang's mouth. The old man started to motion his microphone around the king's face as if he was trying to catch the flying letters. With eyes wide the old man stared at the creature, holding his breath. After his face turned red, he ran out of the room. He rushed to the place on another side of the mirror, where in the darkness two men and a lady stood by the transparent window.

"What did you hear?" the female voice asked.

"It did not understand a word he said."

"Can't be," a man spoke in a deep voice. "The device has the most complex algorithms of translation. By using it, we even could easily communicate with the lizard people from Trax three. Can it be that his language is more complicated than theirs? Who is he? Where the hell did he come from?"

"Perhaps he's saying the truth? Perhaps he could be from here? Only from the future," said the third man, his voice thin.

The deep-voiced man replied, "Future, time travels, you say. What a bunch of crap."

———

To prevent any incidents from happening inside the train, George let Sally and Sandy sit by the window while he put his legs on the chair in front of him. Almost in no time, Sally got hypnotized by the view and passed out.

After a long silence, George and Sandy started to talk about their lives and dreams. Sandy spoke about her studies and hopes to become a world-renowned philosopher some day and George told about his dreams to become a millionaire, and then as he got older, a philanthropist. Due to their different personalities, the beginning their dialog felt forced and awkward, but towards the end they ended up chatting like two old friends.

When they left the train, they counted the days passed after Max's arrest and figured that the day he was going to get freed was tomorrow. Armed with enthusiasm, motivation and Sally's weapons, they decided to head for George's home to see what was going on there.

It was almost midday when they stopped by the fence behind a corner of George's front yard to plan their actions. Sally's suggestion was to go through the front door, to blast everyone who was not John or George's mother. George thought it would be better to approach the issue with caution and use language to solve any arousing problems along the way. Sandy helped them to put their plans into one: if George found difficulty persuading any threatening individuals, Sally was to take care of them the nasty way.

After they pushed the door alarm, many little steps could be heard on the other side approach the entrance. The door opened to the outside to reveal Zoop with four gray friends behind his back, wearing shiny vests and helmets. Zoop held a dizzaperator in his hand; other creatures were armed with steel pipes.