(This is only the second draft of the book Worthless. Expect typos, plot holes, odd subplots and the occassionally wrongly named character, especially minor characters. It is made public only to give people a rough idea of how the final story will look)

Chapter 6

One odd thing about time travel was the strong feeling that as the traveller, you experienced exactly what everybody saw the moment you arrived. On arriving in an unsecured location, there was an explosion, but not a regular one. The impact of someone or something hitting local time sent a blast through local time, but in every direction. Meaning that the blastwave could be felt stretching out both towards the past and future. In other words, an explosion in reverse, then arrival, then an explosion unfolding normally. But as the traveller, it felt like both explosions happened to you, somehow at the same time. It could take years of time travel to truly fail to understand that feeling.
The more natural impact, when the body of a traveller hit the ground of local time and place, was easier to understand. It was no less painful, though! A very unlucky arrival, or one made carelessly, could spell death for the traveller. But even a careful, well executed jump could break bones and shatter skulls. Bruises were pretty much a guarantee, as were assorted shallow burns from the energy surging through the body. That was why only people jumped. Metal cahnneled the energy, leaving a mess of lightning and fire. Plastics melted, cloth and paper burned almost instantly. Jumping naked was the norm, at least on very well planned trips. Even wearing inflammable clothes was a bad idea, as they blocked heat from escaping the body. Something as subtle as body type could make or break a jump. Not to mention gender...
Hitting the sand felt wrong, somehow. Sand was coarse and got in everywhere, but it had a bounce to it. It gave way to the impact. This did not. It felt like hitting solid ground, like hitting packed earth. But it was clearly sand.
Time went by. Seconds, maybe minutes. Everybody had the fantasy that they just arrived and then stood up and walked away. Everybody seemed to remember themselves like that. It was a pleasant fiction. Nobody just got up. Everybody stayed down, hurting. But then, after the hurt, they got up. If they were still alive.
It was indeed sand. Sand was everywhere, stretching on into the distance. But it even looked wrong. Most would never notice, but after a while, everyone started noting things like that. It was too flat. Sand gathered. Dunes, piles, ridges. Sand gathered. Here, nothing had gathered. It was flat. Which was lucky. It made it easier to see the swarm of drones speeding towards the arrival spot!
Although naked was the optimal way to travel, this was not one of those cases. The worn shoes, fire proof and insulating, grabbed well onto whatever this fake sand was. Despite being designed to withstand walking on hot metal railings in factories and the like, the shoes were not long for this world, or any world. They felt slightly like flippers, bits of them melted and flattened by the pressure of walking in them. The old suit, a handy makeshift design made from simple pieces but meant specifically for time travel, was letting off body heat quite efficiently. But once the running commenced, that seemed like far too little.
When the sky turned dark, the drones were long gone. They had spotted the prey, leaving the hunt to others. A distant sonic boom announced that those others had just arrived, cutting their speed down from whatever crazy velocity had brought them there. As the hunters slowed down to regular, subsonic speeds, the huge shadow they cast followed the deep whine of their engines. It hung there in the sky for a moment, getting closer, blocking out more and more sun. A large triangle, when seen from a distance. A complex, windowless aircraft as it came into better view. But before it could be studied properly, a metallic thud rang out from it. The triangle split up, front and end and either side becoming their own thing. The end part plummeted down like a big rock, hitting the ground hard enough to send a shockwave through it. Each of the three other pieces made ballet-like moves in the air, swiveling and turning their bits into flexible limbs. When they landed, the two sides walked on four legs each. The front stood on two, vaguely humanoid. Except for the fact that they were about ten times the size.
"Damn robots..."
There was no point in cursing, really. No point in talking at all, actually. The robots were too far away and likely did not care, and nobody else was...
Another tremor, this one slightly less powerful than the dead-dropped end piece of the flying thing, shook the ground. Metal limbs shot up from beneath the sand, spraying sand in every direction. Like a craze animal trying to dig itself out of a hole, more limbs sprouted, clawing at the ground. And out the animals did dig themselves! At a slight distance, two forms emerged from the sand, one looking like a giant crab at that distance, the other like a massive scorpion. Neither was very comforting.
"Hurry, get in!" a voice called out from somewhere else. In the opposite direction, away from the approaching robots, another scorpion had emerged, this one very close by. It was massive, truly massive, big enough for a large car to pass effortlessly between its many legs.
"Hurry up, they're not waiting for permission!" the voice followed up.
The burn ran through both legs, fatigue and injury from the time jump merging into one horrible sensation. Whoever spoke from the giant scorpion clearly realized this, because the thing lurged forward, fast and heavy steps making the ground shake. Then, a claw reached down.
"Climb on," the voice commanded, less rushed but no less intense.
Had the asituation been any different, it would have been a dramatic luxury, to be lifted into the air on a huge mechanical claw. As it was, the grime and impending peril made it seem less elegant, and perhaps more desperate. In the distance, the two other mechanical  beasts stood motionless, anticipating the oncoming fight as best as they could. In the even more distant distance, the three robot components of the strange flying monstrosity were gaining ground faster, the fourth part standing like a small, technological pyramid farther back, its purpose impossible to tell. It seemed like the quiet moments right before lighting struck, those seconds when the air becomes unnaturally still and sound all but disappears.
"Is everything okay? Are you alright?"
The voice sounded different inside. As the cargo doors in the belly of the metal scorpion closed, all sound gained an echo, a strange vibration that altered the tone of a human voice. It somehow sounded like the same voice as before, but also not.
"I'm... I'm okay."
It was a lie, a pathetic lie. It was abundantly clear, if nothing else then from the wobbling voice, that all was not right. The pain remained throbbing, nauseating, like someone pulling rough ropes through every organ, sometimes slowly, sometimes quick. Everything looked blurry and wrong, only sharp enough to identify the basics of what it was, and only barely so.
"What are you doing out in the wastes? This is not safe country, lady!"
There was something in the voice of this guy that sounded wrong. It seemed out of sync with the sounds of the world, like two very dofferent movie soundtracks had been mixed into one, poorly. He was sitting in a compact but elaborate chair at the other end of a small tube, something that looked like it served a function other than making the machine practical. Maybe the scorpion had a neck, maybe space was simply scarce inside of it. The designs were odd, though, to say the least.
"Are you talking through a translator?"
Calling out simply made the sounds of the voice bounce more violently against the haphazardly placed surfaces inside the machine. It did not make it easier to understand the words.
"Yeah, sorry, we listened in when you complained about the robots. Got the language. Why? Am I hard to understand?"
Considering that the back of his fancy command chair was all that was really visible, a shake of the head was probably not the most efficient way to answer. But somehow, he seemed to figure it out, or simply ignore any problems.
"My turn. What were you doing in the wastes? This is liquid land."
Liquid land? The remark made no sense and made it difficult to focus on answering.
"What year is it?"
There was a loud, muffled boom. Something outside exploded.
"Sorry," he shouted, and then everything seemed to get thrown around. The machine shook and leaned, suddenly twisting hard to the left, throwing everyone and everything inside around along with it.
"What y....."
The machine made a series of hard turns, something exploding outside again.
"2388, I think. Sorry, not used to thinking in ye... hold on!"
The entire thing spun like a top, perhaps doing a full quarter turn, perhaps more! Whatever else there was to say about it, the machine was definitely agile.
"Yeah, sorry about that," he said, clearly assuming that nobody was hurt. It was a dangerous assumption, even though he was right. "This old thing is a bit rough to handle. Why do you want the year?!"
Two loud explosions rang out somewhere outside, oddly enough causing the hulking machine to stopp moving as erratically. For a few moments, everything seemed sort of peaceful. Then the machine made a slow turn, pointing front to back, and began accelerating.
"Wait, who are you?"
He didn't answer right away. Judging solely by the back of his neck, he seemed a bit confused by the question, which was a bit surprising.
"I'm.... wait, who are you?!" he finally replied.
"Marie. My name is Marie. Now you."
"Tenner," he answered, "Tenner Piermont, second tier machine pilot."
The machine kept picking up speed. If it was using its legs to move, they were clearly moving fast. Not to mention precisely, considering how smooth the ride felt.
"I never heard that name before. Are you from The Embassy?"
The guy chuckled, which sounded strange through his automatic translator. Translators needed somewhat large chunks of speech to understand the point of the words, and that meant a slight delay. An experienced ear noticed that. A chuckle needed no such thing, making it translate fast.
"Lady, I have no idea what an embassy even is. I just bump the droplets."
"Your translator is busted. That made no sense."
For whatever reason, he chose not to respond. There were a few hard moves from the machine, making it feel like a small boat in a big storm.
"There's a small outpost about a kilosecond from here, how about I drop you with them? I'm sure they have answers."
Yeah. Maybe they did.

The small outpost was anything but small. It was impossible to tell from inside the scorpion how the place looked from the outside, the only hint being that nothing was climbed, and yet the machine was clearly lowered into the hall it ended up in. With no discernable motion, Tenner made the cargo doors open, while he himself left the machine beast through some sort of canopy that seemed to snap open around his seat. There were no claws to be helped down by this time, either. Just a platform, seemingly floating in the air beneath the gaping hole that the doors formed in the scorpion's chest.
The hangar or garage or whatever the appropriate word for it was stretched out far in all directions, including up. One strange machine after another lined its floor of moving platforms, no single floor to even point out. Everything seemed to be in a constant sate of flux, the platforms moving and changing without notice. It made it impossible to tell which way to go, or even which platform to step to. And added to that was a million nagging fears of what might happen if one was to make a wrong step, falling between the platforms!
"Who are you?"
The voice was soft, but came out of nothing, making it seem threatening nonehteless. It seemed to have no clear gender, no clear age, nothing, which seemed to fit in disturbingly well with the lack of a body. It was just a voice.
"Marie. Who are..."
A platform appeared, sudden but without sound. Small, eight-sided, looking fit for a person to stand on it and little more. Stepping onto it made it rush upwards at a rather frightening speed! It adjusted itself beneath the feet, constantly, making sure not to drop its human cargo, like some circus showman balancing knives on a long stick. And as abruptly as it had started, it stopped, slowing down only enough to not fling its precious cargo into the stratosphere. Or, more aptly, the ceiling.
"Welcome, Marie. You have no identify on file. Are you a spy?"
The voice now had a body. A slender machine figure, looking more like an art project than a humanoid robot, stood with a delicately tilted head and folded fingers looking like long drops of gold and glass weaving together in a very human gesture. It had no face, just a smooth silver shape, like a baker's carefully folded dough. It was like looking into a mist trapped in a fancy bottle. It was impossible not to get hung up on the fact that it had, indeed, no face.
"You... are a machine."
The machine nodded, which at the same time looked absolutely beautiful and terrifyingly unnatural. The tilt of its head, gently to the left, became bigger, as if it was trying to show concern. On the slender body of glass and myriad colors, it looked like the head was in danger of snapping clean off, the stalk of a neck looking strong enough only to carry something the size of an apple. A small apple. Not a head. Which, as it was impossible not to notice constantly, had no face.
"This is 2388. Humans and machines are at war. Right?"
It was a breathtaking study in something trying to imitate life. The machine looked around, moving its faceless head in small jolts, almost as if it was flinching, or having a seizure. It was obviously trying to mimic confusion, but the results were more like a seizure ballet.
"By your count, this is the year 2488," the voice said, still seeming disembodied, even with its body present. "The war has ended. Why do you think it is 2388? Are you ill?"
It was impossible to tell if the last question came from concern or as an insult, but considering the machine overall, it was likely concern.
"Tenner said..."
Noticing the sudden silence and broken sentence, the machine unfolded its gold and glass fingers and touched its face, like someone scratching their cheek while thinking.
"Tenner is a Martian native. His calculation was apparently off by a digit."
Hearing an entire century boiled down to nothing more than "a digit" was the source of a million migranes, but that would have to wait. The machine did nothing else, clearly waiting for some more words to react to. It kept making little gestures, trying to seem human, but failing badly. 2488. The war between humans and machines had officially ended. The major powers on both sides had joined forces, an alliance that should by now be mopping up the last remnants of combat eager warriors on either side.
"So what was that out in the wastes? Tenner called it liquid land. And he talked about bumping droplets."
Increasing its game from merely unnervng to outright terrifying, the machine began to gesture in the air, as if it was illustrating what it said.
"The liquids are the alien forces, so called because they possess no single body but merely a liquid form that mixes or seperates as needed. It is a warrior slur to call them droplets. Tenner is assigned to eradicate them."
There was nothing in any of it that did not make the mind boil over. 2488, a century off target. This was a nightmare coming true.
"Look, I was sent by...." It likely made no sense mentioning The Embassy. Conversations with this machine trying to play human was hard enough as it was.
"Look, I need to examine something that I guess is somewhere out in the wastes. Someone placed a big... thing out there. I need to see it. Can you get me there?"
"No."
The answer was heartbreakingly quick and to the point. The machine barely even moved between hearing out the question and giving the answer. It seemed pointless. All of a sudden, it all seemed completely pointless.
There was a soothing quiet about the place, a hint of melody flowing from some unseen source, no doubt meant to affect moods, and astoundingly good at it. The machine said nothing, patiently waiting and fiddling with its strange fingers. Around it, mainly along the curved walls of what looked like a domed room of some kind, images floated slowly about. It looked like nothing but decoration, this age's equivalent of a fancy wallpaper. Looking at any one image made the sound of a matching voice appear, the place clearly tracking eyes to broadcast its weird, disembodied voices. Maybe the talking machine was not even the source of its own voice. Maybe it was just there to give a human observer something to look at. The images were propaganda, through and through. Each described some epic battle, followed by a message of peace and conciliation. 2450 was a year that kept showing up, apparently the end of the war. A war that was supposed to be raging at this moment. Then again, this moment was supposed to be in the year 2388.
"Where did that take place?"
The machine turned to look at the image pointed out. While its fingers and arms, not to mention head, were disturbing to watch imitate human movement, its body and legs were so far off that it seemed more like an animal from the chest down. It moved in a way that looked stumbling, even if it clearly was not, and the body twisted in ways completely inhuman.
"That was the battle of Deekwoter, in 2428. The Alabaster Brigade made a surprise assault on..."
"Great, very cool story. But where did it take place? Can you show it on a map?"
Even while the machine kept trying to fake confusion, the images along the wall did exactly as asked, proving clearly that the machine itself was just for show. A map appeared, impossible to recognize.
"Can you zoom out?"
At this point, the physical machine was background noise. What really mattered was floating near the wall, the map zooming out steadily, clearly waiting for...
"Stop."
It froze. It was finally recognizable.
"There. Can you take me there?"
"No," came the immediate response. It didn't sound angry or frightened, as an immediate answer from a human being might. It was soft spoken, very matter-of-fact.  Very much like a machine answer would be.
"Am I.... Am I allowed to leave?"
"Yes," came the answer, again quick and to the point, sounding in no way like there was any emotion behind it. The conversation felt weird, like conversing with someone who was thinking of something completely different. And yet, out the corner of the eye, the machine could be seen trying valiantly to appear as if it was matching its body language to the voice. It was a conversation at odds with itself, a schizophrenic conversation.
"How do I get there, then? I mean, if I am going on my own?"
The machine, the physical part of it that kept trying to act human, forced itself into view, making an effort to appear as if this was a face to face conversation, now. The odd but pretty shimmer inside of its smooth face had turned less misty, more solid, looking like the yoke inside some artistic glass egg. Strangely, it made the thing look like it was making a serious face, even if one without nose, mouth or even eyes.
"That is The Green Crater. That is not a place for any of us. We will not help you there."
Green Crater. On the map, there was a rough outline of a circle, suggesting that it could be an old crater. The green was no doubt a reference to all the plant life that seemed to have returned to the place over the years. How old the crater was was impossible to say offhand, but it had not been there a century ago, at the time that this was supposed to have been. So no more than a century old. Some time before even that, it had had another name, Sollested, a rather unfortunate name that in the native Danish meant 'petty place'. It had been a nice little town, long ago, before the wars and disasters that the last few centuries had heaped upon it. What the name had meant long before that was hard to say. Words changed their meanings. The name of the town not that far from it had a more definitive meaning. Neck-wood, essentially, named for a crook in a river passing through, the 'neck', and the woods that had grown around it. In Danish, that name became Nakskov.
"Why won't you help me? What's wrong with the place?"
The machine actually made a sound clearly meant to imitate a sigh. It came out wrong, just a bit, sounding more like a glitch in a hairdryer, but its point was clear.
"We cannot move there. We cannot go there. We were not made for it."
"You mean, machines are not made for it?"
The machine nodded, as if it was the most natural thing in the world to understand it that way. Green. Plants. These machines were not designed for moving in wooded areas.
"How close can you get me?"