(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 19

Outside, the wind could be heard gripping the edges and corners of the building, whistling as it did. The wind wasn't particularly strong, but the silence and the acustics inside made it seem wilder and more ferocious, judging by the sound alone. Had one of us spoken more, the wind might easily have disappeared into the background. But we didn't. Not until Mischa finally opened his mouth.
"These are... people?"
I nodded, slowly, disliking even acknowledgin the fact.
"Each black spot, one person. As far as I understand it."
He looked at me, briefly, as if to verify that he was not imagining the things I told him. Then he turned his eyes back to the many black marks on the floor.
"This is insane, Ida. We need to... I don't know. We need to tell someone, for #*@!'s sake."
"Who?" I shrugged. "Who are we going to tell? What are we going to say. If you didn't see the copy with your own eyes, you would have thought I was just crazy."
"No, I would... I mean, of course I..." He took a deep breath. "Yeah. I totally would."
Still making gestures at the floor now and then, as if to start saying something profound or asking about the details of the quiet carnage around us, he walked carefully across the floor, avoiding stepping on any of the black marks, or at least attempting to do so. Nothing more than an occassional sound came out, typically a prolonged or stammering gargle.
"Ida, we..." He turned to look at me, and his eyes were starting to fill with water. Seeing his do so, mine threatened to follow. I kept it at bay the best I could. "These are #*@!ing people, Ida!" he half shouted, his voice echoing softly down the hallway behind him. "These are... people... dead people."
"I know that," I snapped, immediately regretting my tone of voice and forcing myself to speak more calmly. "I know that. But what do you want me to do? The police? Hello, officer, time travelers exploded, here's a slightly vandalised old school building to prove it?"
He was rubbing his head, as if scratching his hair, but more hectic and eradic. I had seen that before, when his emotions were threatening to get the better of him.
"So what, you... you wanna be a part of this? You want, like, this?" he asked, pointing his open hand around the place, demonstratively aiming it at black spot after black spot.
"I don't want any of this," I answered, trying desperately not to let my angry voice take over, but at the same time, trying to keep tears from sneaking up on me. "I saw some random woman go pop in a #*@!ing colored confetti light show thing, on the lawn by the library, on some random night. Everybody told me I was nuts, so I looked into it myself, and suddenly every lunatic within two days travel from here want to tell me I'm special or warn me to not meddle insomethng but never telling me what that something is. Do you think I brought you here to brag?! I'm #*@!ing losing my mind, here, Misch!"
"Well, at least you got access to therapy," he muttered, mostly under his breath. "I'm probably just gonna end up babbling in some dark corner somewhere. Hoo #*@!ing ray for childhood traumas."
The silence between us returned. When his legs finally began to get a bit too unbalanced beneath him, Mischa walked slowly to a set of old recliners near the corner, staring at them as if to treaten them before plunking down in one like a sack of potatoes.
"I can't... I can't deal with this, Ida. I can't deal with this. How do they even do it in those #*@!ing movies? I mean, this is a graveyard. These are basically corpses."
"I'm not sure they technically are," I muttered back at him, not really thinking about what I was saying.
"What?"
My mind finally caught up with my mouth, and I found myself struggling to put together the pieces I had been given by the so-called time travelers in the old house.
"I mean... They're not really dead. I think."
I was completely caught off guard when Mischa leapt out o his comfy seat and started more or less jumping around the room, spinning in place and waving his arms to fend off something that just wasn't there.
"Are they ghosts?! Are we surrounded by spirits?!"
"Nooo," I answered, still unsure how to react to his little dance routine, or whatever that was. "I mean, they told me that when this... thing... happens, it doesn't outright kill people. It sends them back."
"Back where?"
It all replayed in my head, the explanations of the our out in the house. The details had been garbled, my mind having trouble grasping all the ideas. But the basics seemed there.
"They said..."
"The time traveling squatters outside of time?"
"Yeah, them. They said that they are sent to a time, like now, like the time we're in, and they kind of get stuck there until their mission is over or something. They somehow stay in the time. But whatever happened, it knocked them loose, and they get pulled back. Like a rubber band or something."
Had Mischa's brain worked any harder on the concept, there would have been the sound of gears crunching.
"Time bungees," he whispered, followed by a weird expression on his face when he realized how stupid he sounded.
"Yeah, something like that," I answered, looking around at the many black spots on the floor.
"Oh, wait," I added, my heartbeat suddenly rising, "there's the, uhm... No, I have to show you."
I found myself suddenly doing my best to, like him, avoid stepping on any black spots, as I made my way to the stairs leading down. I never even looked back to make sure he tagged along, sudden urges to move taking over my entire body.
"What are we... Holy shit, slow down," he complained, and I thought I heard him half slip on one of the somewhat worn down steps of the stairs. I didn't slow down, however.
"I think this is their, well, time machine," I huffed, trying not to cough at the dry air I was breathing much too fast in my eagerness.
"Their wh.... Did you say a time machine? You got a #*@!ing time machine down here?!"
I chose not to reply, instead focusing my air on getting me to the small room with the wooden panel floor. Turning the corner of the door to the arts and crafts room, or whatever it was, I stopped only long enough to hear his footsteps come running down the hall, having apparently fallen a bit behind.
There was nothing. The floor, wooden beams and all, looked like just another floor. The weird lights, the dark hole to below, none of it was there any longer.
"Cool. Your time machine is a room. How does it work?"
"I don't... No , this isn't it, it's supposed to..."
Feeling a wealth of mixed emotions bubble up inside of me, I took two steps into the room and jumped, part of me thinking I could trigger the mechanisms, or perhaps even just break right through the floor itself. But nothing happened.
"I swear, Misch, it was right here! There was a hole in the floor. No, not a hole, but like, like the floor was unfolding, and there was a room underneath it. And it had weird lights and stuff in it and... stuff."
The tears finally began to force their way out, but I forced them to stop when I felt his hand on my shoulder.
"Look, Ida, I've seen a perfect copy of you act like you at school, so I'm going to give you a lot of leeway on this. But... I can't promis you that I understand any of it. So, you know, due to ignorance, I support you."

The small clock on the small square cast a long shadow across the cobblestone and tiles around it, showing even without the clock itself that noon had passed and evening was on its steady way. A scattered hadnful of people were enjoying what sunlight remained of the day or doing their last bits of shopping. The promenade wasn't exactly crowded, but it wasn't empty, either.
"I don't get it," Mischa said, standing beside me. "Is that white woman gonna find us here? Are we gonna find her?"
"We're not here for her," I replied, my eyes scanning the town around me. Nobody was paying any significant attention to us, and I wanted to make sure that stayed the same for as long as humanly possible.
"Wait, are we fighting someone else? I think I should know a lit..."
"Not fighting anyone. Not now."
I finally turned to look at him. He seemed impatient, making small awkward movements and looking around in a very unfocused manner. A million useless attempts at saying something omforting went through my head, but I realized how futile it would be.
"We're just us," I instead added. "Those time travelers out in the house have their own weird plans, and I honestly don't think they have it all together. Whatever is special about me, I have to figure it out on my own. And I'm not really up to doing this without some kind of backup, to be honest."
I didn't have to turn around to know that Mischa was not entirely sure what I was talking about. I ignored it. Instead, I wriggled my fingers a bit, and started to slowly walk down the promenade.
"What are you..."
"Just keep an eye out for anyone who seems startled near me, especially, if I flinch at the same time, okay?"
He mumbled something that sounded like agreement, and I continued. A mother with two small children passed me by, then an older man looking at scribbles on a small piece of paper. One by one, people in the street passed, and nothing happened. Then, a small poke in the fingers on my right hand. I turned my head quickly and saw a tall woman with a strong tan and dark brown sunglasses walk by, suddenly writhing her shoulders and scratching her arm, looking around with an uncomfortable expression on her face. Behind me, I looked at Mischa, who just nodded back to me, his eyes still looking a bit confused.
Moments later, a young man in mostly old black clothes seemed to jump as I felt a buzz in my entire arm. Another woman, a little older and wearing some kind of American style flight jacket, actually stopped in her track and looked, and I felt a cold chill in my throat when she squinted slightly upon looking at me! When we came to the end of the promenade, I stopped, looking out over the roughly triangular Axel Square. Mischa nearly bumped into me, looking at his phone while walking.
"What are you... Did you pay attention to those people?" I asked. He simply smiled.
"Took pictures. Nobody noticed it. I think."
I didn't comment on his apparent skills at stalking, simply casting a glance at the phone in his hand. Without hesitation, he showed it to me.
"These eight people I don't know, but I'm pretty sure that's Emilia's dad, the girl from ninth grade with the big curls. And that guy works in one of the supermarkets, I don't remember which one, I just remember him always looking like he's in a panic. And that girl, that's the one who helps at the volunteer thing near the school."
He didn't take his eyes off the screen, but he felt eerily silent for a moment.
"Ida, we know these people. These are, like, people we meet around town. What the #*@!? I mean, what the actual #*@!?"
I had no answer. It had of course been clear to me that the people I expected to find would be living amongst us. But they weren't just living amongst us. They were us. They were not just hiding in Nakskov, they were part of it.
"Uhm, also, just a thought," he added, slowly calming down. "But do we know who's the good guys and who's the bad guys, here? Like, am I buying groceries from some assassin robot from the future without knowing it?
Everything danced before my eyes. Inside my head, questions floated about by the dozens, the pictures on Mischa's phone swimming by like posters thrown in the harbor. I tried to answer him, even answer that I didn't know. But I failed. Nothing came out of my mouth but faint, incoherent sounds.
"I think we need to think this through, like, real hard, Ida," he finally added, pulling me out of my mental tailspin.
With the sun sliding lower and lower into the sky, we walked in silence back along the street that went by the clock and the square at that end of the promenade. Not a single car passed us by. Or perhaps I simply didn't notice it, caught up in my thoughts. Strategies. Tactics. Plans. Not my greatest force.
"What did you actually expect?" Mischa finally asked. The question came at me like a curveball, out of left field.
"I don't... I don't know. I mean, I knew they walked around here, I ran into some of them earlier, but... I thought they would be some weird outsider things, like some random person. Not someone who actually lived in..." My mind went blank for a split second, then dug down into my memories to figure something out. Where it went, I simply followed.
"Lived in what?"
"Camilla," I muttered, not really hearing what Mischa had said.
"Somebody lives in Camilla? That sounds unhealthy," he nervously quipped. I heard it, this time, but chose to ignore it.
"Camilla had to call her mom. Then her mom came. In a car."
I was starting to realize that I stood perfectly still on the sidewalk, staring blnakly into space.
"She sounds like a true villain, let's get her?" Mischa quipped, again, probably trying to lighten the mood.
"They're integrating themselves," I finally concluded out loud, still standing in the same spot. "They don't just hide here, they have integrated here. Camilla was born by time travelers, but she isn't one, she doesn't react to my... the zappy thing. The clothes. She doesn't react. Because she was born here. They all have complete lives here."
"So... anyone here might literally be third or fourth generation time traveler? That sounds wrong."
"No, no," I assured him, finally looking at him, at least in a quick glance. "No, you're completely right. They live here for so long even their bodies get integrated. All that's left from another time is their teeth."
"Their teeth?" he asked, his voice alone pointing out how both bizarre and hirrifying that idea was to him.
"It's not a battlefield," I nearly whispered, but evidently loud enough for Mischa to hear. "It's not a battlefield," I repeated, looking at him, "its a refugee camp. A sanctuary. They're not fighting, their trying not to fight. Don't you see?"
"Honestly, I have #*@! all idea what I'm supposed to see, Ida," he replied, eyes wide and glaring uneasily.
When I finally started walking, he had a hard time catching up. My feet almost floated above the ground, steps so fast I barely landed before I took another.
"You said the girl worked at the volunteer thing by the school, right?" I asked, feeling each word drain from my breath as I rushed enough to almost be jogging.
"Yeah, but..." Mischa, not quite the speed walker, fiught hard to keep pace, and expending air on talking clearly held him back.
"What?" I asked, slowing down to let him catch up, hating every second of holding myself back.
"But what are you going to say? Hello, what year is it where you're from?? Or maybe ask for next week's lotto numbers?? We need to think this through, Ida. This is kinda big. Just, you know... kinda."

"Do you have any idea, at all, how creepy this is?" asked Mischa as we stood at the corner of the street going by the train station  and the school, trying to be casual. The volunteer cafe didn't stay open very late, but it wasn't entirely unusual for some of the volunteers to show up near closing time, just to help clean up or talk about future work. There was no guarantee that the girl was in there, but there was no guarantee she wasn't either, and it beat trying every supermarket in town to figure out which one Mischa had seen the guy at.
"If you know a less creepy way to talk to strange girls, let's hear it, Casanova."
He didn't comment.
"What are you planning, anyway? I mean, I get that you want to talk to her about what's going on and all, but what is it you want to do, other than that?"
A gust of wind blew in, carrying some of the smells from the harbor. Wet dirt, old metal. I couldnt actually see the harbor, not with a few buildings between it and us, but the smell was one I and everyone else in town knew perfectly well. That, and the smell of the sugar factory when sugar beets were being processed. That smelled like burned caramel, throughout the entire town. Many of the older townsfolk felt that a lot could be said about a person by whether they prefered the smell of the harbor or the smell of processed sugar beets.
"I'm special," I answered, trying to think hard about the words as I spoke them. "I don't know what that means, but it's the one thing I know for sure. It's the one thing they actually told me outright." The wind picked up, bouncing between the houses and along the asphalt. "I need to figure out what it means, and what I can do with it." I took a deep breath, trying not to cough as the thick air and the smells it carried filled my lungs. "If I'm going to make plans, I need to know what I have to do with this... ability. If it's even something like that."
Mischa was about to follow up on the question when the door to the volunteer place swung open, and the girl from the phone photo stepped out. She was a bit older than me, robust, With long legs and short hair, brown with traces of old blue color in it. She also had glasses on with a very heavy frame, something she didn't have in the photo.
"Hi," said Mischa, taking a step towards her. The girl froze immediately, standing like a deer caught in headlights.
"I've got mace," she said, in a disturbingly soft voice.
"I've got, uhm, sandwiches," Mischa responded, clearly stunned by her remark. Even from behind, I could almost see her send him funny looks.
"We're not here to hurt you," I said, not thinking it through. Startled at someone sneaking up behind her, she spun one-eighty, her eyes immediately starting to look for ways of escape.
"We just want..."
The impact of her rucksack hit me dead center, folding me like an origami figure. I balled up on the sidewalk, gasping for air, clutching the bag as some kind of reflex. The moment she reached to grab it back, I felt the surge of energy run through my body. But before I could say anything, she got close enough to release it. The spark zapped with the sound of a small thunder crack, sending a bright flash through the air. As my sight returned, I saw her fumbling about on the pavement, Mischa rushing in to help her.
"No," I shouted at him, and he stopped in place. "You'll zap her."
He stood with his hands still extended, as if to help her up from a distance, shuffling his feet in frustration over what to do. Fearing that his helpful nature might take over, I kept a hand raised at him, trying to ignore the tortured look on his face.
"It's you," the girl growled, her voice raspy and low as she clampered her way up to sit. "I heard about you."
"You what? You heard about me? What did you hear?" I asked, all three questions in rapid succession, exchanging looks with Mischa even as I spoke.
The girl spat on the sidewalk, and I couldn't help but notice there was a bit of blood in it. As her fingers ran across the sidewalk to find her glasses, she kept her eyes aimed straight at me, barely even blinking.
"You're the one running around, ejecting people. My parents are packing for Copenhagen because of you," she hissed, flashing her teeth at me as she spoke. Against my will, I could feel my expression change, my feelings hurt by her words.
"I... Why? What the hell did I do?" I asked, hearing my voice threaten to break.
"What, you show up, blasting their goons back to wherever they came from and she starts rounding us all up, you think that's a coincidence? The whole blast thing, was that your idea, too? My brother nearly got fried from that, they're still keeping him for observation, you psycho."
Her snarling voice and icy stares were clearly meant to intimidate me, and they worked. I felt my lips and hands tremble slightly, and my eyes kept drifting past her shoulder to Mischa, for nothing more than a feeling of moral support. Holding a safe distance, looking up and down the street for signs that anyone might try to get involved, he sent me back a look of quiet worry.
"No, I didn't. I didn't have anythign to do with... Wait, the blast happened before all this. I had nothing to do with that!" I proclaimed. The girl said nothing, finally getting fully on her feet, and her eyes now starting to look for an escape again.
"We don't know what's going on, either," Mischa suddenly said from behind her. For a brief second, she spun around, sending him a look I couldn't see, but one that made him take a step backwards. She then turned her eyes on me again. This time, however, the intimidation was swapped for a glance that ran up and down my body, measuring me up. I felt like she was estimating her chances in a fight with me. She really didn't need to. She had almost a head on my height, and looked like she could hold her own. Anyone looking at us from the outside would see me as little more than a twig for her to snap.
"Really?" she said, suddenly looking a bit more relaxed, shoulders dropping just a little. "Then how'd you do that zappy zappt stuff? Dumb luck?"
"Kinda," I answered without thinking. "It's just a thing, not a, you know, thing." She sent me a look that told me that no, she didn't know. "It's just something that happened, not something I really control."
"What you want, then?" she finally asked, in a calm if slightly dismissive tone.
"We need to know what's going on," I answered, grabbing the first question that came to mind. "This is all kinda new to me, to us. We need some kind of... I don't know..."
"We need a tutorial on time travel," Mischa interrupted, a little too loud. He immediately realized that, and started looking around in a panic. "Uhm, because Doctor Who is such a great... classic... and stuff," he added nervously.
"Yeah, I can see you're real trustworthy. Discretion and all," the girl grumbled blowing back a stray bit of hair that clung to her face. "I know a guy at the local radio station, if you wanna, you know, tell even more people."
I made a quick move to grab her arm, not really thinking about the consequences. The moment a few sparks began crackling around my fingers, however, I pulled back the hand. The girl was clearly trying to figure out something, staring at my hand and then looking around. Looking for some way to take advantage of it, probably.
"Look, we just need to know what's going on. We already spotted, like, ten of you at the promenade, we know that..."
She grinned, and I stopped talking. After she turned towards Mischa, seemingly to keep an eye on him, he noticed her grin, too, from the worried look in her eyes.
"Oh, man," she chuckled, suddenly seeming far less spooked by us, "you really don't know what's going on, do you?"
"Then help us, we just want..."
My words were cut short when she leaned over in an almost animal way, and then bolted across the street in what lokoed like a single leap! I only barely noticed her foot balancing her against the building on the opposite side of the street, letting her change direction without tumbling sideways like a drunken double-decker bus. I noticed the leg mainly because of the sound of brick crunching beneath it as her mass was pressed against the wall.
And like that, she was already too far away from us to catch up. The last thing I saw before she hurried around a corner was her briefly stopping to look back and flip us off.
"What the hell was that?" I heard Mischa say behind me as I still looked in the direction she had run.
"Ida, what the #*@! was that?!"