Chapter 1: Would You Believe Me If I Said This Was An Accident?

Today has been a strange day. I'm sure tomorrow will be even stranger.

A little while ago, I stopped to check in on a dear friend of mine on my way home from work. I saw some lights coming from her garage, the front door was unlocked, and she wasn't picking up her phone. Obviously, being a good friend and greatly concerned for my friend's well-being, I invited myself into her home. It was a sorry sight, the usual disorganization had become an unusual catastrophe of malfunctioning electronics. Bizarre scribblings covered the walls. They were circular patterns containing more circular patterns. I smelled a mix of blood and incense. Clearly, something very strange was going on with my friend- who struck me as quite pagan but generally nice- so I looked further into it.

I'd found her in her garage, in front of a glowing portal like someone had sliced a thin line in the air and pulled each side apart. There were a rainbow of colors and a cacophony of sounds coming from it, and my friend stood there, utterly transfixed. I'd had a sense to come by and visit, and my timing couldn't have been better; when I saw her, she was reaching into this gaping hole in reality, with an arm covered in blood and a knife in her hand. Clearly, this was something very bizarre, and I was concerned for my friend, so I leapt into action. She had quite a cluttered garage, but I went over, around, or through the various things there as my friend slowly stepped through this blobby thing. I'm not sure she heard me calling for her, or if she did, she wasn't listening.

Obviously, I couldn't catch her in time. I tripped, fell, and went in right after her.

Right now? I sat on a wagon in the front of a caravan of wagons drawn by oxen, in the company of what I could only assume was some kind of knight. He looked like a knight, to me, he had on colorful pants, a polished but undecorated breastplate, and he'd come up to me on a small pony. The pony held his arms, a dagger, an ax, a spear, a shield, and his traveling provisions, including some large bags and a helmet. I noticed the heraldry first of all: a two-headed bird, whose tail feathers were swords. I wondered what it meant. He was a pleasant young man, about my age, with a fine beard, blonde hair, and sharp features. I noticed first and foremost a large scar on his face; someone had slashed him up with something pointy. He'd found me, stopped the caravan, and demanded I be let on- he declared it the righteous thing to do, seeing as I had no bag with me, and was clearly a foreigner or lost.

I have decided I quite like Oscar. He seems reasonable enough. I had made a few tangents in my story to cover certain concepts which I'd imagine he'd not quite understand. Remarkably, he wasn't too bewildered by things. A garage is just a stable for cars. A car is just a wagon which moves itself. Electronics were more difficult. Frankly, I don't understand how they work. So I brushed over those and rephrased it that all the lights, tools and books were in disorder. I penned him in as a quite enlightened sort, even-tempered, if a bit stony-faced. I bet he'd be fun to have a beer with and shoot the shit.

"That's a strange story," said he over the din of the animals and carts, "I'm not sure I believe it."

I shrugged and pulled the blanket he'd given me closer. It was still a cold season in this foreign place. God forbid they give a man hand warmers out here. "Do you think I could come up with something like that off the top of my head?"

"Maybe."

I sighed and patted my pockets. I had everything on me when I fell into the portal. Jeans, which, while a fantastic deal at the time and quite nice, were no match for Oscar's colored trousers in terms of style. I checked each pocket. Car keys, I don't see any cars. Wallet, something told me that the greenbacks I had were not legal tender around these parts. Cigarettes for my friend, but no lighter, funny how that happens. Switchblade, that might come in handy- Right! I'd been so caught up in talking with another human being I'd forgotten about my phone. Funny how that happens.

So I drew my phone out. No signal, of course. Be nice if there were. Oscar and the driver leaned over to look at the little black slate. I turned it on. Wonderful, eighty percent battery. I'm sure I'll find somewhere to charge it. The sight of my phone's wallpaper made the driver's eyes widen a bit. Clearly, nobody had ever showed him the wonders of the Bass Pro Shop Pyramid, on the river, down in Memphis, Tennessee. I tried not to think about how I was so very far away from there now.. "What in the world is that? Is it magical?"

"It's called an iPhone, it's just a gadget," I unlocked it and went to my photos. "This can do a whole lot of things where I'm from. It's half useless here. Eh, you've seen a portrait, right? Picture of somebody, painted, oil on canvas, you've got a king, right? Lords, barons? We don't have many of those where I'm from. I’m sure your kings have their portraits made."

The driver whistled. Out of the corner of my eyes I saw Oscar's eyes narrow. I opened up the gallery on my phone and started looking for that picture Sam asked me to take, a little while ago. Oscar interrupted me, though, with a question.

"So from where do you hail, then?"

"City of Atlanta, state of Georgia. Ever heard of it? We got good peaches. Peanuts, too."

Oscar shook his head. "I've never heard of a place called Atlanta. What's it like?"

Thus, I spin off another tangent. "It's a big city. Millions of people live there. It's all concrete- think... man-made stone, and steel. Great big buildings made of the stuff. It's in the middle of a big forest. Imagine..." I paused to think of how to describe it, "However big the biggest city you've ever seen is, it's bigger, and however busy you think the busiest city you've ever seen is, it's busier. As many wagons on a road you've ever seen, there's a thousand times more, and they all get stuck on a road sixty miles long that circles the city. More people fly in and out of it in a day than- do you know how things fly?"

Oscar stared at me, clearly, he thought I was mad. "Birds do it with their wings, Roebuck, and magicians do it with spells."

"Where I come from, it's done with this thing called a plane. Imagine a big tube, made of this lightweight metal, and put two wings on it, not feathered like a birds, but they're made of metal. And on the wings, imagine a..." I spotted a windmill, and pointed, "imagine the opposite of a windmill, if you will. It's a big fire in a tube that moves metal, to move air, to get it moving... what's the fastest thing you can think of?"

He thought about it. I had such a knack for explaining things. "An elf loosing an arrow, those are quite fast."

Elves were real? I'd have to ask about that. I wondered if they were the tall graceful kind, or the kind that baked cookies inside a tree. "Right, the tube moves the air, and this moves the airplane, and the way the air moves above and below the wings, makes the plane fly, kind of like..." I had a lightbulb moment, "like the little feathery bits on an arrow that help it go straight where you aimed it. In fact it moves so fast that it can cross, something like five hundred miles in an hour."

Oscar seemed to understand it, if maybe he found what I said implausible, or unbelievable. The fine gentleman to my left, a portly fellow with a perpetual squint and sunburned face, took his turn to look at me like I was a madman. Oscar trotted closer. "I'd like to ride on an airplane, if it's that fast. A sixty mile road, all in a circle? The defense of it, did it have high walls, an army?"

"You don't want to ride on an airplane, they're cramped, and the food is atrocious." I shrugged. The caravan driver passed me a waterskin. I thanked him, took a sip, and returned it to him. My thumbs kept working the screen. "No, no walls. Most of the time, the army was overseas, blowing up poor people, serfs. Lots of police, though, or I think you'd call them constables. But, boy, I wished it had walls. To keep the people living there in, mind you."

"Hm. So be it, but I would imagine this wondrous city, with such a wide road and tall buildings, could not hide itself away. I would have had to have heard of it."

To that, I raised a finger. I'd found the picture I was looking for! "Ah, but you haven't, because I come from another world. Really, honest, one hundred percent of it, I’m not lying to you, nor am I insane, but I know I might sound that way-"

“Hold on a moment.” The knight rubbed his chin. He reached into a pocket on his saddlebags and retrieved a coin. Even with the sky covered in dreary clouds, I could see it glinted like silver. He pushed his pony to within inches of our wagon, and then held the coin up. It was silver, with a stamp of some king I wasn't familiar with on it, and ridges on the edge. "Roebuck, catch this, then show it to me."

Then he threw the coin at me, and I snapped it out of the air. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed his hand on the hilt of a sword.

Clearly, he'd been anticipating something, because he watched me rub the coin with my thumb. It was strange seeing untarnished silver with such a natural sheen. My finger came to rest on the cheekbone of the king's face marked on it, then I held it between two fingers so Oscar could see clearly. I got the sense this was a kind of test, and when clearly nothing happened, and I did not burst into flames, or find my fingers melting off, or whatever he was looking for, I grinned. And gave the coin a bite. Just to mess with him. "Eh, see? Nice coin. Kinda tasty. About how much is one of these slugs worth?"

"One drake is a day's wage for a warrior of my skills. Alright, I see you're no demon or shapeshifter, but that you are a madman, I am still unsure." I tossed him back the coin. He seemed half-satisfied with this, and smiled curtly. "So you must be human at the very least."

"Right. So, if I wasn't, what would you have done then?"

Oscar laughed. "That is a question with an answer you might not like, friend, do not trouble yourself with that.”

I got the sense it would've gotten ugly. “Do I look- I don’t even know if I’m supposed to be offended by that, buddy, but now, look at this photograph, the both of you. This is who I'm looking for. I have this picture of her."

I turned my phone around to show them. It was a simple photo, a selfie of myself and Sam at the bar. It was from quite a high angle for the fact there was a massive crowd. I looked like a dork, she looked like an angel, we got along just fine. We both had glasses of beer in our hands, and she was smiling. We were friends, but not like that, alright? The fact of the matter is we both liked the same games, movies and shows, she was real cute, but I had a buddy I'd have liked to set her up with. He was just outside the picture. Honest.

Oscar damn near fell off his pony, and the driver leaned back. Both of them were perplexed. Oscar, though, recovered faster, absolutely fascinated. "How is that portrait on that little piece of glass? Ah, it's got text, in a language I can't read. Roebuck, can you explain this, like you explained 'airplanes,' and 'garages,' and all those other things?"

"Imagine a little machine that can paint a perfect portrait of whatever you point it at and then show it back to you later, and it can hold..." I made up a number, "A hundred thousand portraits, and they're called pictures. This is a picture of the woman I'm looking for, her name is Samantha Rhodes, and that's a... tavern we've been visiting. Look, if I were making this up, would I be able to show you this?"

I think I saw Oscar's heart skip a beat. "My! What a beautiful woman your friend is!" I watched his eyes track lower, and his eyebrows raise. Yeah, she had that effect on people. Shame she wasn't exactly my type. We're just good friends. "...Ah, she's rather comely, too. I can see why you'd want to look for her so eagerly! But I still don't believe this portrait thing of yours is real, it could be an illusion-"

"Oh, Christ, Oscar, you've seen nice tits before haven't you?" I flipped the phone around, swiped to my camera, pointed the lens at his gormless face, then showed him the picture. I showed it to the driver, too. "That's you right now, see, that's him right now, is that enough for you? I don't mean that in any kind of disrespectful way, but you are testing my patience a little." I was getting annoyed, and boy did a cigarette sound good right now. I dug out the pack, pulled one out, and looked between him and the driver. "So, either of you got a light?"