Early ReTyrement

By Robert Raymond

Can a modern programmer make it in the ancient world?

Computer Programmer Mason Trellis thought he had problems with corporate nepotism. When an experimental laser punches him 2400 years counterclockwise to the ancient port of Tyre, he discovers greater problems (namely ignorance of metallurgy, chemistry, explosives, history, or even the date of a convenient eclipse). Now laboring in a wineshop, he’ll have to think hard and fast to come up with a way out of slavery and into wealth, power and the arms of the lovely daughter of a high Persian official, all before the war between Greece and Persia destroys this eastern Mediterranean city.

Praise for Mason Trellis, hero of Early ReTyrement-

Frank Tanner (Comtec Manager): Mason was an exemplary programmer. I felt bad about him not getting that promotion, but that was no reason to vanish without two week’s notice, leaving his lunch trash in the laser test room. That’s only common courtesy in a modern corporation.

Aziru (Wineshop Proprioter, Mason’s owner): I purchased Mazon’s slave contract, needing him only to distribute wine and bread to my patrons. But the ideas he brought, the changes! The city of Tyre will never be the same!

Alexander the Great (Macedonian General): I shall kill that whoreson! I shall take his throat within my hands and...!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Raymond
• Release date: Feb 4, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465891594

Robert Raymond

Robert is the founder of Prairie Avenue Group, a consulting firm specializing in helping retail and small businesses to achieve greater levels of success.

Book preview

Early ReTyrement

Robert Raymond

Published by Robert Raymond at Smashwords

Copyright © 2011 by Robert Raymond

Cover art, map and divider: Michael Metcalf

ISPN: 978-1-4658-9159-4

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author

This book is available in print at most online retailers.

To Jane

~ ~

Books by Robert Raymond

Don’t Jettison Medicine

Fire and Bronze

I thought I saw the palace domes of Tyre,

The gorgeous treasures of her merchandise…

I looked again, I saw a lonely shore,

A rock amidst the waters, and a waste

Of dreary sand…

She stood upon her isles, and in her pride

Of strength and beauty, waste and wave defied…

Ruin and silence in her courts are met,

And on her city-rock the fisher spreads his net.

-William Howitt

Table of Contents

Prologue

A Bad Day at the Office

When Wishes Come True

Icons and Desires

Beads and Pockets

Maneuvers

New and Improved

Organized Chaos

New Game in Town

Historical Notes and

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Prologue

How brilliant the sea looks today, Patisbazos mused from the manor’s high window, looking across the city’s thick rampart to the sparkling Mediterranean. Even more so without the black hulls of foreign triremes.

He was a tall man, thin as a mast. His dark hair and beard were tightly curled in the manner of his Persian overlords, his clothing Medic in origin. His flowing white robe, cinched with a wide belt, ended at mid-thigh to expose trousered legs. His head was topped by a spherical felt cap tailed by a ribbon of white silk. The western sun flashed upon the tiny silver falcon dangling from his left earlobe.

He warmed himself in the sun’s golden cast while his trained senses monitored the household’s efficiency. From the kitchen came the aroma of bread and fish for the evening meal. Fastidious snips echoed down from the hall’s open skylight as rooftop fruit trees were trimmed. Elsewhere an unseen broom methodically pursued the daily dust. All was as it should be.

His thoughts, satisfied with the domestic rhythm around him, moved on to the demands of his master. His man was gripped with a new challenge, this time from the distant Carthaginians who had stolen his ideas and were making inroads against his trading empire. Where most men would curse such privations, Master Mazikurash rubbed his hands with enthusiasm, seemingly thanking the gods for the new challenge.

To worry is Persian. But to offer an alternative, Phoenician, the young man would opt with his alien view. Patisbazos, impartial as a rule to the often-inexplicable antics of his master, permitted a thin smile to grace his thinner lips. But as he thought, he allowed his long fingers to run along the marble columns framing the window, tracing the fresh fissures and chips in the otherwise smooth forms, and the smile fled his narrow face. The damage had come from a cloud of arrows that had flown like a January storm through the opening, a reminder that his master’s impetuousness sometimes made powerful enemies. While Mazikurash’s comments were often true, they could purchase the young noble trouble. It would be disastrous if a spathaka overheard the words.

Fortunately, his master valued his chief servant’s advice. He could usually temper the young man’s impulsive ways.

His thoughts were interrupted by a pounding that rose from the street door. He nodded to himself as he recalled the day’s schedule and started for the stairs. Halfway there a maniya, a domestic, stepped out to answer the summons but he waved the girl away.

Descending the dimly-lit stairs, he opened the door to admit the vibrancy, dust and noise of the affluent Tyrian street. Carts heavy with trade goods rattled past on the cobblestones, cries rose from the distant market, and every quarter reverberated with the blows of wooden mallets, repairing the recent war damage.

Before him stood a Persian soldier, the butt of his spear resting on his forwarded right foot, a formality of respect. To his side stood a man who’d clearly seen better days. He appeared to be from the isle of Cyprus yet his robes were muddied and torn, his beard ragged from neglect.

Is this the house of Mazikurash? asked the soldier, his Persian words slightly stilted by the customary nasally tone of his people. At Patisbazos’ nod, the man continued. I have brought the slave as specified by the contract.

Patisbazos formally thanked the man and dismissed him. He then critically looked over the Cypriot, who shuffled uncomfortably in his new station. Finally the head servant observed, You will require a bath before your initial interview with Master Mazikurash. Come.

As the new slave entered through the thin, tall doorway, Patisbazos gestured to a dark room off to the side, cots just visible in the gloom. You will sleep in this room; the master of slaves will detail your pallet and the rules that you will observe. Moving up the stairs, he spoke without turning to the man who followed.

As you are aware, you have been purchased by the house of Mazikurash. It was understood that you possessed skills used by the late invader, skills that set you apart from your comrades who labor beneath the sun with reconstruction.

In reply, the man swallowed, stammered, perhaps only now gripped by the full realization that he was now the property of another. Patisbazos turned to look down on him from the stair’s summit, his form silhouetted by light from a high window. Finally, the man regained the thinnest measure of dignity.

Aye. I received training in Athens in the arts of geometry and trigonometry. I served with the late invader’s army as a captain of one of his siege engines.

Indeed, Patisbazos observed dryly as he looked down from his elevation. Then you are aware of my master’s advances in that field.

Personally aware, the man replied, finding some of his former courage. Might I inquire of him how he managed such amazing accuracies with his engine? It was as if Zeus directed his missiles.

You may inquire, but I would not recommend it. The head servant turned to enter the sunlit hall at the top of the stairs. The master will trouble your ear like a miller grinding corn. In due time, you will understand the process.

They stood in the doorway of the audience hall, bathed in the sun that sank towards the darkening sea. For a moment, both men seemed lost, fixated in the calming beauty that flooded the chamber. Finally, the tall Mede turned to his charge. "I am Upahacker Patisbazos, and I direct this household. If you have any questions, you will bring them to me."

"Upahacker? I must plead my deficiencies in the Persian tongue. I understand that ‘upa’ refers to the position of deputy. But as to the other word, I know not its meaning."

It is a title derived from my master’s own. Its meaning is unexplainable at this time, but you will learn its trade. Now, aside from your room and board, you will receive wages of three silver shekels per month. After the first year, that will rise to six. There are also bonuses awarded for advancing the master’s work.

The slave gaped at the Mede as if he’d suddenly sprouted a tail. Paid? For a moment his mouth opened and closed like a fish pulled from the sea. But I am a slave!

It is Master Mazikurash’s way. His homeland is distant and his methods inexplicable. The servant scratched at his long bearded chin in thought. Still, we have a number of slaves who have managed to purchase their freedom and remained in the master’s employ. The situation can only be seen as... unique.

Suddenly, a distant male voice drifted over the room, a voice that sang as it approached. The new slave found the tune odd. Unlike the formal, repetitious beats that he’d always known music to be, this melody sank and soared like the waves of the purple seas outside. It was only as the singer neared the chamber that the Cypriot slave realized that the language he heard was not one spoken in the eastern Mediterranean.

A man swept across the chamber room, his song spilling absently from his lips as he pursued some private objective. He was of medium height and build and was adorned in white Persian robes. His wide cloth belt was deep purple, and the slave sucked at his teeth when he considered the cost such an item represented. The dyes of Tyre did not come cheaply.

More remarkable was the noble’s hair, which flashed like yellow gold in the setting sun. He’d seen such hair coloration only once or twice before, in slaves captured in the areas north of Scythia.

The man, oblivious to the two who watched from the dark portal, continued on his way. His strangely sung words, like the chanted utterances of a Magi, made no sense at all.

"Yeah,

I’m the type of guy that likes to roam around.

I’m never in one place; I roam from town to town.

And when I find myself, falling for some girl,

I hop right into that car of mine; drive around the world,

‘Cuz I’m the wanderer,

yeah, the wanderer,

I run around, around, around, around…"

The Cypriot slave listened as the voice, disembodied by the hall the young man had exited through, slowly faded away. He turned to ask of the strange apparition to find Upahacker Patisbazos standing still, fingers held before his own lips, the sign of proskynesis, a show of the greatest respect.

A Bad Day at the Office

I looked over the shimmering Atlantic breaking before the morning sun and thought how beautiful it would be if not for the invading tourists. They bobbed on their surfboards, their boogie boards and their love-handles, backlit into black figures by the rising sun. I reminded myself that such is the price for living in Daytona Beach; bikers, breakers, racers and vacationers.

This was part of my morning routine. Standing just inside the sandblasted patio door of my second-floor apartment, my sun-illuminated image mirrored before me, I gave my tie a final tug and looked over the reflected entirety; jeans so new they were more purple than blue, a nice white short-sleeve shirt, my red power tie. With my blonde hair combed just right, I projected the image I desired, that of an informal yet capable twenty-six year old.

Suddenly a sharp meow came from below and Munster, my overweight Persian cat, rubbed sensuously around my legs. With a chuckle I stooped and scratched him between his flickering ears, evoking a kettledrum purr. Then I slid the door open on its grit-rough tracks, aiding my companion of eleven years across the threshold with a nudging toe. Such was it with Munster.

I grabbed my lunch bag and followed him onto the porch, descending the rickety wooden stairs to the sand-swept parking lot. My once-white, now-rusty Volvo squatted in its customary corner spot. With some coaxing it coughed itself into blue-smoked life and bombed south down A1A. There was currently a retro-60’s craze going and my Dion CD picked up from where it left off last night, banging out Runaround Sue.

The sights of the morning drive were the usual string of contrasts. Billiard-green lawns shaded by sun-blasted palms. Condos towering like Emerald City, ratty tee-shirt shops clutching at their bases. And on the sidewalks, the people were equally mismatched; meandering old couples from Quebec, jogging health goddesses, dazed Iowan families in duckling lines, coin-jingling beggars. Add to this mix various small-time grifters, brimstoning missionaries, time-share shills, burned-out surfer-dudes, brokers masquerading as bikers, and clueless truants and you had quite a freak show. A normal person would stand out as an oddity against the daily carnival.

When I looked across the chaos of traffic backdropped by high-rises, I felt a little sad for Mrs. Evans, my landlady. She and her husband had purchased the Palm Arms Motel at great expense years ago when Daytona had been a quiet tourist destination. But the city had exploded, its skyscrapers lancing sunward while its streets filled with crazies. After the passage of Mr. Evans, the Arms had slowly settled from a weekly rate family motel to a cluster of shabby, pealing efficiencies. Poor Mrs. Evans. Time and events, as she’d found out, move in ways we cannot predict.

Suddenly, through the shimmering forest of brightly screaming signs, I saw the logo for a fast food joint I occasioned and, on a whim, I cornered into their drive-thru lane. Within the minute, I’d gained a half-dozen impartially-served biscuits and a sweating paper cup of soda. Careful to keep the grease from my clothing, I one-handed my way along the morning logjam, turning right onto 92. By the time I hit the Intracoastal bridge, I was stuffing the last biscuit into my mouth. When my bald tires rumbled over the tracks of the Florida East Coast Railroad, everything had been stuffed into the bag and tossed into the passenger leg-well. Within minutes, I was at work.

ComTec is located in an office park across from the airport, just south of the mall. Daytona Beach, desperate for clean, crisp high-tech dollars, had rolled out the welcome mat for anything remotely trendytech. A sweetheart deal lured ComTec from Tucson to their sunny shores.

ComTec is a new-wave industry, born in an era of shrinking R&D departments and offshore programming. They provide the staffing, computer resources, programmers, and floor space to a wide assortment of firms who could not pursue new development otherwise. This means that any given room might contain anything from a cage of sickly lab-rats to a cobalt-jacketed laser. And I speak with knowledge on the latter, since I have been providing computer support for that project since I started working here four years ago, right after graduation from Daytona Beach Community College. Which is just as well since I don’t like rats.

I wheeled into a spot in the back row of the parking lot, up against a ragged wall of palmettos. Tossing open the car door was like opening the door to a kiln – another hot one for sure. As I ejected, I remembered to snag my ID tag from under the visor. Beneath my optimistically smiling face was my name, Mason Trellis. Clipping the tag onto my pocket, I made my way across the blistering asphalt to the building’s entrance, passing rows of middle management Acuras and executive Cadillacs. With a little luck, maybe I’d soon be parking a nicer car closer in. Today would tell.

The drowsy guard snapped into groggy wakefulness as I banged through the front door; I tossed him a nod in passing. A left turn following the guard station brought me to a sea of cream-colored cubicles stretching away under the glare of overheads. I was approaching my own workstation when a voice called out behind me.

So tell us, Trellis, what’s up?

And so it began.

~ ~

Skip Maddocks leaned against a cubicle divider, an overgrown cherub garbed in a ridiculous Hawaiian shirt. He was a nice-enough guy in a Dummies Guide sort of way. But then again, he was also my boss’s boss’s wife’s brother, a man whose only skill in computers was his self-described feel for them. I’d been quite happy with my solo gig on the jacketed laser project until my boss, Frank Tanner, had dumped him on me like a garbage truck upending its load into a landfill. Frank had been apologetic at the time, commiserating in the fact that Alan Saxon, his boss, had told him to put Skip somewhere. Since the laser project was ahead of budget and schedule, there was little that I could do save entrench myself in my work and laugh with increasingly bitter tones at the daily Dilbert strip.

For Maddocks was a disaster. His programming skills were haphazard, his interpersonal skills even worse. When a problem had cropped up with the shell scripts, I’d figured that he could handle this simple task. Not only did it take him twice as long as I’d expected, but in the weekly meeting that followed, he phrased this task to sound as if I’d gone to him for help.

Let me kill him, Frank, I’d afterwards pleaded. Just a little bit.

Mason, just keep him quiet and out of the way. And be careful what you say around him. He goes to lunch with Saxon every Friday. Remember: loose lips; pink slips.

It was one of those cancerous things that gnawed on one’s soul, a fundamental flaw in the universe screaming out for divine lightning. I tried to stay out of his way and get on with my work, but ComTec was a small place and our team even smaller.

Every morning, it was one of two equally inane greetings. Hasten, Mason, time for work, or So tell us, Trellis, what’s new. And each time, it was followed by some lame joke. Today was no exception.

So, Mason, Skip smiled in his bohemian manner while I braced myself like a submarine’s crew hearing the splash of depth charges, If you pulled the wings off a fly, would it be a walk?

Heh heh, I bellowed in uproarious mirth. Say, Skip, have you gotten those SQL commands worked out yet? My tux services are ready.

Day or two, he shrugged, with the same impartiality he’d shown the last time I’d asked, two weeks ago. With our official greetings done, I retreated as quickly as possible to my cube, settling in and logging on without a thought to my actions. Normally I could lose myself in the electronic realm but I had started noticing just how suffocating my world was becoming. My desk was snowed under with its usual fall of papers and yesterday’s coffee had petrified in the bottom of my ComTec mug. Without looking, I pulled the mustache that Skip had once again taped on Munster’s photo. Add cube-space trespass to his growing list of crimes.

For a long moment I stared at the waiting cursor as a vast doubt rose within me. What was I doing in this enclosed environment, more Bastille than office? It wasn’t for the money. Contrary to popular belief, not every programmer is as rich as Bill Gates. A great majority of rank and file programmers would like to be paid on par with city municipal workers. We have neither union nor pension. Most of us work years of our lives in these stressed-out environs, our livelihood threatened by offshore competition. We face instant termination at the drop of a project. So why do we do it?

Well, for me, I’d rather be buying biscuits at that fast food joint than serving them.

But there was a way out. I’d been working on this project since its inception, building the data systems that would permit the results of each laser test to be stored. We’d been running firing tests over the last several months, automatically saving the operating parameters to files, building an interface, essentially laying the project’s foundations. Soon two new programmers would be added and Frank had hinted that I was being considered for a project-lead position. If this worked out, I could be purchasing my own Acura soon.

I had told myself to be cool about this since I was a shoe-in for the position. I knew the project from stem to stern and had made it shine through many non-reimbursed evenings and weekends. Still, I was too jumpy to focus, pecking uselessly at the perimeter of the project, unable to gain any momentum.

I was commenting code an hour later when Betty, our overworked admin, blurred past. Frank asked if you could see him in his office, she dropped in passing.

My mouth turned dry. Showtime.

~ ~

Even though Frank Tanner’s window showed nothing but a tangle of palmettos, it was still an enviable office. The same computer, the same mound of papers, the same coffee cup, but with a window. All the difference.

Have a seat, Mason, he said easily as he leaned back in his chair. How’s the project?

The databases check out. The screen interfaces are done. The data that we’ve recorded from the laser firings of last week passed validation. Once Skip wraps up the SQL end of it, we’ll be ready to move to the next stage.

Frank nodded, content with the progress. I just wanted you to know that we hired those two programmers, the ones just out of college. There’s no telling how they’ll work out so we’ll have to keep a close eye on them. What with that and the deadlines, we’re going to need someone to take charge of the project, to keep it moving forward. This is the critical stage.

He smiled at me as he moved a pen in and around the fingertips on his right hand. Mason, you’ve been with this project from the start. You’ve put in a lot of hours and for that, ComTec is grateful. Now the project’s expanding and we need a project leader to keep it moving forward. I told Saxon that you’re the man for the job. The pen serpentined through his fingers, a mesmerizing blur.

I felt my taut back unwinding. Just then, Frank’s fist closed around the dancing pen like a python on a chicken. But…

But? But? And then a horrible thought swept over me, one that rose as fast and threatening as a Florida thunderstorm.

Frank sighed, his features a grimace. Saxon wants Maddocks for the job. He says that Skip was specifically hired with that position in mind.

For a moment I sat motionless, my heart pounding. Then I shook my head. You can’t be serious! He can’t even use the VI editor! He barely knows how to run the laser! I can’t believe that you’d give my job to that clown!

Frank made a calming motion with his hands, showing a Buddha-like equanimity. Easy for him as he already had an Acura out in the lot. Mason, I know this is unfair, but there isn’t a lot that we can do about it. You need to take this in stride and keep moving forward. Another position will open up. I promise.

For a moment I wanted more than a promise. I wanted him to write it down on a piece of paper, to guarantee that ComTec would do what was right in the future. In my stomach, the biscuits rolled as if reminding me what was at stake and I forced my angry disappointment down to a low yet fiery flickering.

Seeing that I was now under control, Frank smiled tentatively. That’s better. Just don’t take it out on Skip; this really isn’t his doing. And remember to keep your cool. Since this is a ‘Right to Work’ state, Saxon can shoot anyone out the door, justified or not.

Thanks, Frank, I said in wooden tones, rising to leave. My manager remained seated, looking me over as if seeking insider trading info on my go-postal potential. I left on teetering knees.

I drifted through the office cubes, the quiet murmur of activity lost on my deaf ears. Now what could I do? I’d been working on a specific application for years so I really wasn’t marketable anywhere else. And Daytona was a dead town, technology-wise. I didn’t have the money or the inkling to pack up and move on.

Against the far wall, a distant clock showed 11:24. I needed this lunch. I needed a break from the unfairness of the world. I needed a dark place to lick my wounds and eat my PB&J while working out my thoughts. Entering my cubicle, I snatched up the crinkled brown lunch sack.

Mason, can I have a word with you?

At that moment, I would have rather that Lucifer himself had thundered into my cube with a chit for my soul. Turning, I saw that lumpy red Hawaiian shirt and the fingers on my sack clinched.

I guess that you heard that I’m the project manager, Skip said apologetically, a casual admission to a gross miscarriage of fairness. It shouldn’t affect the way we work together; we can still help each other out. After all, we’re a team.

Calm. Remain calm. Remember that Munster relies on you for his cat food.

He smiled, perhaps deciding that this management gig wasn’t half-bad. Anyway, we need to reshoot all the laser data in a little while. Maybe I could help you with it.

I suddenly knew that I was but a second away from taking a swing at his bovine face. In just a second, my lunch bag would hit the floor and there would be this meaty crack as I broke his nose. Security would be called. And for the rest of my life, I would have to smile weakly in interviews and respond, Why did I leave ComTec?

Get out, Mason! Right now!

Sorry, I said brusquely, brushing past him. I’m at lunch.

In the break room, I shoved coins into the soda machine like bullets into a pistol. Careful, Mason. Calm down. Around me, my fellow co-workers bitched and moaned their way through another lunch, centered on their little life-crises while my entire career went up in flames.

So I took my minivan back to the mechanic and said that the cruise control was still hosed…

As a mother, you realize that we are more ‘in-tune’ to the world around us…

Anyway, my broker tells me that I shouldn’t keep all this cash on hand, that I should invest more aggressively…

Bag in one hand, soda in another, I fled the break room. Down the hall, following turnings left and right like a lab rat in a maze. I eventually arrived at a heavy door.

Cobalt Laser Testing Suite

Authorized Personnel Only

I slipped inside. The door thumped closed.

The impartial silence of the room soothed my tattered emotions like a cooling balm. Nothing here but a desk, a PC and some chairs. In this age of computer controls, little else was required.

I looked over the vault-like room where I had spent so much of my time, all of it pointless and wasted. From the screen my own code glowed in emerald irony, an interface allowing users to direct all aspects of the laser’s discharge.

I sighed. I couldn’t eat here. It reminded me, all too much, of what I’d invested.

On the back wall, a smaller door led to the firing chamber. Shouldering it open, I looked into the pitch-black enclosure. The only thing visible was the laser’s barrel, gleaming in the cold light of the outer room. The total blackness called to me and I submitted, dragging a chair into the firing chamber, letting the door swing closed behind me. At its thump, the total darkness returned. The world beyond was lost.

I sat on a chair in the center of my starless universe, listening in rapt silence as my teeth ground my sandwich. In the darkness, flavors and texture were enhanced, magnified. I could feel the muscle-play of each swallow, the orderly workings of my own body. With every sip of soda, pearls of carbonation trickled over my tongue. The icy drink arrowed down my gullet, blossoming out in a silent explosion in my stomach.

My heart slowed.

I let go.

The wrapper fell from my limp fingers as silently as bats’ wings. A moment later, the aluminum can rang bell-like against the tile floor, rolling with resonance until it fetched up, a ting, against the far wall.

I didn’t want to leave this darkness. I didn’t want to return to that soulless sprawl of cubicles, to face Skip’s inane jokes and the general worthlessness of it all.

I just want a new life.

My hearing, now working overtime to compensate for my loss of vision, detected a faint stir from the outer room. What did a man have to do for a little privacy? In a moment, some Hispanic cleaning woman would push her way through the door, look up and say something like, Perdoneme, no sabia que usted estava, aqui. And I knew that I would bury my pain sheepishly, smile, and say that it was all right.

Let’s go, Carmella or whoever you are. Come in and interrupt me already. No time like the present.

Suddenly, there was a brilliant coppery flash.

When Wishes Come True

The funny thing is, when you instantaneously shift from a pitch-black laser laboratory to floating in pure sunlight thirty feet above rolling emerald waves, the first thing that flashes through your head is that this is some sort of elaborate practical joke. Any second now, your co-workers are going to shut off the experimental holograph projector or long-distance hypnotizer or whatever and step out, laughing at your expense.

I was still thinking how pissed off I would be for this intrusion into my private angst when slowly, then faster and faster, I dropped towards the sea below. The smell of salt, so ever-present in Daytona yet so out of place in the sterile confines of ComTec, filled my senses as my velocity increased. A second before I hit, I started pumping my legs as if to ward off this onrushing blue wall.

The water was comfortably warm upon impact. I was a good ten feet deep before I managed to stabilize myself. The distinct silhouette of the chair I’d been slumping in seconds before tumbled past, sinking away into the inky depths. I hung in this indigo space, my eyes slowly blinking, a trail of bubbles curling upwards, floating in this physical and mental null space. Then some base instinct took over and I made a tentative stroke upwards, then another, climbing towards the shimmering light above.

My head broke surface into a silent world. Dead quiet, unbroken by a gull cry or rippling wave. Easy swells rocked me as if to comfort. The sun hung, a ball of gold, high in the pale vault of its cloudless sky.

This isn’t funny, I said aloud, trying to maintain my cool. There was nothing for my words to echo from. No answering heckles of laughter seemed forthcoming.

I began darting desperate glances over one shoulder, then the other, looking for a beach, a pier, and exit sign, anything. Desperate curses shot from my lips; I started churning my feet, attempting to drive myself upwards out of the blue vastness engulfing me. I almost managed to get my belt clear of the water before giving up, sinking back to bob in silent dejection.

With this leveler, albeit more depressed state of mind, my body recalled its years spent in the gentle swells off Daytona. I rolled back to float face up, squinting into the brilliant sun. I rocked for some time, thinking small thoughts, then licked my lips. Salt. My first hard fact was that this wasn’t some vast lake like Okeechobee.

Now that I was calmer, I realized that a faint ribbon of land was visible. With the sun unhelpfully at zenith, I was not sure if it was east, west, north or south. It was backed by a pale line of distant mountains, opaque in the salt haze. There was no way to tell whether this was a huge range seen at long distance or a puny stand of hillocks only a mile or so off. Not entirely true; there was one way to tell. Buckling up my fortitude, I rolled onto my belly and struck out with a slow methodical stroke towards the faint blue ridge.

After ten minutes of steady exertion, I stopped for a moment, considering my progress. My shoes were narrow and made for flash, not propulsion. With reluctance I kicked them off, peeled out of my socks, took a recharging breath, continued.

Other than maintaining my heading and a steady stroke, there was little to occupy my mind. My thoughts turned to what might have happened. Something had rimshotted me somewhere not-Daytona. The laser? Could it have triggered somehow, nailing me like the Enterprise’s transporter ray? I thought that was more plausible cause than, say, my peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Evidently my distance from the center of the earth had remained constant during the transference – this made me thankful I hadn’t been working in Denver at the time. Fortunately, Daytona Beach is pretty low.

A momentary image of what might have happened had I been blinked to Denver, or rather, under Denver, came to mind. I forced the grisly thought away.

Of more importance than how I had transferred was why I had transferred. My best guess, the laser, didn’t make a lot of sense, but neither did home shopping channels. I knew what it took to make the laser fire; I’d done it myself many times. There was not a simple red FIRE button; it was code driven. From the main screen, the user needed to enter a series of laser set-up parameters. Then there is a host of Are you sure and Are you really, really sure dialog boxes. No cleaning woman had hit me with two hundred gigawatts of laser power simply by bumping a switch with a mop handle.

Suddenly, words drifted through my head.

"Anyway, we need to reshoot all the laser data in a little while. Maybe I could help you with it ."

I reined up in the water, the thought bringing me to a dead stop.

Skip, you stupid bastard! Around me, the waves bobbed about, noncommittal in the face of my accusation.

What did a little while mean? Given Skip’s track record, I had assumed it meant later this afternoon if not sometime next week. Yet Skip was a kiss-ass who, given a new project, would want to show how keen he was by working through lunch, at least for the first day. Such early results could be used to gratify his brother-in-law and stored in the bank for future slacking.

Suddenly my mind pictured a dialog box, as clearly as if shimmering in the sky overhead in huge fiery letters of damnation.

CHECK & CLEAR FIRING ROOM BEFORE PROCEEDING,

THEN PRESS OK.

Dammit, you lazy idiot! I yelled into the emptiness, my voice cracking with dryness, You’re supposed to really check the damn room, not just shrug and click ‘continue’! This was followed by some additional loud accusations but since they were little more than opinions and unproven biological conjectures, they serve little purpose here.

Eventually, I settled onto my back in my watery bed once again, rather done in by my exertions. I calmed myself down, having had lots of practice in this since first coming in contact with Alan Saxon’s deadwood-in-law. I was going to have to rely on my own strength and willpower to get myself out of this jam, and using energy screaming into the pale sky would achieve nothing except a watery grave. In control once again, I allowed my tiring muscles a chance to recover and looked up at the sun.

It was definitely moving, dropping slightly in the direction of my wrinkling toes. This meant that the hills, which were tenaciously remaining indistinctly distant, were to my east.

Rolling into my stroke once again, I began mulling over where I might have ended up. The only western coastline that I could recall possessing a range of mountains just inland were the western shore of the Americas. The trouble with this was that the same shore and accompanying mountain range ran from Alaska to Peru. I could be anywhere along this vast stretch.

Then again, the water was very, very warm, leading me to believe I must be someplace close to the equator. That further limited things to a run from mid-California to Peru. I would rather it be the former, as I rarely carried my passport in my back pocket at work.

I pulled on and on, keeping my thoughts from my gathering weariness by working and reworking the speech that I was going to blast Skip with if I ever got out of this. Once I had tailored it to perfection, I began to make one up for Frank for not standing up for me in the crunch, and for Saxon for