Skipped

Skipping - formerly know as Time-Skipping - helped reduce the overpopulation that plagued the world in 2218. At first, they'd Skipped scientists, doctors, and military leaders; in short, people that were excited to discover a different version of their own miserable world. They'd sent along communications systems, med bays, and any other technologies they could think of to help the pioneers set up a new civilization. The plan was to eventually start Skipping people by the thousands to help lower the population - but something went wrong.

Cut to 2238. Skipping is now used as a punishment. The government empties the prisons by Skipping the prisoners to a fate that might be worse than death.

Carter had heard the stories. Prisoners were Skipped with only the clothes on their backs and the shoes on their feet. It wasn't likely they'd lasted more than a few hours in the strange lands of the past and far distant future. He'd been in isolation for seven months by the time they finally decided to Skip him - his family's reputation had saved him for at least that long, enough time to say goodbye to the people he loved, but not enough time to overturn his sentence.

So they Skip him, and to his surprise, he doesn't die in the first two hours. In fact, he lasts through the night and partway through the morning. That's when he meets Shalom and his camp - more like small city, to be realistic - of pioneers. Shalom's made the camp home for over 500 people and counting. It seems idyllic at first: everyone works together, there are no wealthy, there are no poor, and the people are friendly.

But there's a rival camp only a few miles away; a rival camp that is desperate to get their hands on the precious resources that Shalom's people have - medbays, 'screens, as much technology from 2218 as they'd been able to carry.

And there's something lurking outside the camps walls; the sinister beast that the prisoners back in 2238 had nightmares about.