All Things I've Done To Save You

Shock to the system

Pathetic! Herman cursed in his thoughts as he sat down on a nearby bench to rest his feet a bit, charge his smartphone by putting it into the slot next to him and plan his next move. They are just a bunch of slow, decrepit old men!

Herman reminisced about the team he left behind and Made Oka who rebuked him when he said, “I think I can try with their internet. I’ve tried that yesterday and it worked. I interpreted their language through the binary…”

No wonder Herman was upset by the limitations set by Made’s team, which, according to him, was too protective for their good. The team did manage to move stealthily and safely all the time until they returned with more neutrino samples, but they would never find Amanda that way.

Only by trying a few things, I know that the internet system functions here are easy to decipher and understand, said Herman to himself. I understand those scientists and technicians don’t have the skill to hack, decipher, tweak and synchronize internet codes, but at least they should appreciate that I have those skills. So, I solved the language problem at least by looking at my smartphone first before responding to something an Osirian said. And then, we match their alphabets, numerals, and symbols with ours, and voila! 

Herman has explored further into the Osirian internet and computer systems and found that the operating system was similar to Windows, even simpler. Even the search engine, also developed by a company called Gaong was more advanced than G****e. The Gaong search engine provided human biometrics search by combining the common characteristics like face, body, and many others and matching them with individuals currently in the area of the search caught by smartphone cameras and sorts.

The gap between generations included many differences in handling technologies, so the younger Herman was easier to master the technology in this era than Made Oka and his team.

An idea suddenly popped out of Herman’s mind. Mr. Marwan said that the InterTime time machine can only go to the past through the neutrino samples from the relics, right? What if we apply an algorithm to calculate the neutrinos from various timelines altogether, and then made a trend, a prediction to the more distant, unknown future? Maybe that way, we can time travel to the future, like the first time machine invented by George Wells! He immediately wrote that idea into his notebook. Maybe it would come in handy later if he ever goes back into his own time with Amanda.

Getting back to the search engine on his smartphone, Herman uploaded one of the best photos of Amanda in the gallery, the one with the clearest biometrics combination. Gaong search engine then tried to match the biometrics data with the data from phone captures, CCTV, live recordings, and all.

While waiting for the results to show, that Amanda’s current location, Herman stared lovingly at his girlfriend’s photo. He never expected her to be some tycoon’s granddaughter, or even got himself involved in this bizarre adventure to this futuristic past. It was merely Amanda’s face and looks and her fascination with Herman’s smart talks and empathy that got them together in the first place, back in high school.

Even when Amanda must go to France for her honorary scholarship at the University of Sorbonne, Herman was willing to travel between Germany and France very frequently, almost every weekend to hang out and maintain closeness with his girlfriend.

A signal from his smartphone snapped Herman from his nostalgic daydream. He immediately checked Gaong Search Engine and it yielded no results. It was no surprise because Amanda had no identity in this era as she was not a legal citizen of this Osirian city of… whatever. So, the software must match biometrics and biometrics and could only present images and the current location of Amanda’s perfect match, never her identity.

Herman thought again, that maybe there was no satellite in this ultra-modern yet proto ancient age. The range of Gaong Search Engine was about a city block or so, so he must search for another relay antenna on top of the highest skyscraper in another block to perform the search again.

At this point, he longed for home.

But he missed Amanda more than anything else.

So, the home could wait.

And so, Herman spent the whole day searching for Amanda with Gaong biometric search engine around the city. He went to the next block and the next to no avail. 

As the internet in Osiris was simpler and much less secure than in Herman’s time, Herman has already set up a fake Gaong account with unlimited credits as money, with ankh as the Osirian currency name while he was with the team. That way, he rode with the Tube Mass Rapid Transit or T-MRT to search in various districts, hoping to catch Amanda’s biometrics anywhere – or better still – to find the real person.

In this strange world, Herman was just a wandering, homeless bum.

Now his stomach was grumbling. The last time he ate was when he was with his team last night. All that he ate was the ration for the team, so he ate sparingly. Luckily, with his new Gaong account, he could get quite a lot of additional snacks. But he didn’t get to do many “secret purchases”, because the teams would send him back to Cianjur the minute they found out about this.

Now, Herman had his stomach full. But to prevent anyone from suspecting him of cheating and him getting locked away, he must find a real job to cover him up. He looked around intently, hoping for a job he could do. He then saw on a road someone moving the goods from the pavement into a container hover truck. And then the truck hovered away just like that.

Herman was assured that the man was a porter. It seemed that kind of job still existed around this Industrial District. The passing truck was a cargo truck that came and go on a strict schedule, picking up and delivering packages to and from addresses specified by the QR code-like hieroglyphs.

In big factories, sorting centers, and such, the goods selections were done with robotics, whereas in these sort of places like small factories, home industries, or even homes it’s still done manually. Whether it was done by hand or with forklifts, even with lightweight goods, not many people were willing to do it.

Herman didn’t know whether it was because everyone was well educated, well employed, or lived in prosperity so it was a disgrace to do manual labors like this. Getting the menial job with ease from the courier service, he became more creative to save energy and time. Instead of waiting in one place, he took all the small packages from every house one by one and then pooled them all neatly in a big container at the roadside. That container will be taken by the pickup truck. It’ll save time that way, but people were just too lazy to do so.

The container truck of course belonged to the courier service. The container box pool in front of every block contained the post boxes sent by the residents of the houses to be contained in the driverless, all-robotic hover truck that came according to the schedule. And the robotic hands will replace the full box with the empty one on the pooling center. Nobody was at home. If they could, they would do it themselves, but other people could collect the packages, scan the QR hieroglyphs with their smartphones, and then submit the data to the courier service to get ankh credits. It was the job for the jobless.

The post box owners didn’t need to worry that someone would steal the portable post boxes because sensors were attached to them. If it was brought outside the range, in this case, the block it’s assigned to, the alarm would blare very loudly like a panic signal.

Herman made a mistake once when he brought a post box to the nearest box pool. However, it turned out that the box pool was in a different block. The alarm blared, so Hernan hastily returned the box in a range of its original box pool block sensor before attracting someone else’s attention.

The next morning, when Herman was about to pick a box up from a house porch, the door opened. Coincidentally, the owner of the house came out. Herman was shocked to see a blue-eyed girl coming out, wearing a sleeping blouse without a bra and pants.

Herman knew that because the sleeping blouse the girl was wearing was very thin, showing the curves of her tan-skinned body. The blouse was thigh long. Her hair was short, so her smooth, long neck could be seen perfectly matched with the breast line on her blouse.

The girl wasn’t surprised to see Herman. Instead, she looked at Herman’s handsome face intently. She then wiggled her hips a bit as though showing off her curvy body and greeted, “You want to pick up the post box, man?”

Understanding what the girl said, Herman nodded. At least he now knows quite a lot of vocabulary from the Osirian language, thanks to his near-genius intellect and memory, at the elementary student’s level. Now Herman knew that people here didn’t suspect strangers at all. He couldn’t help being seduced by this exotic-skinned girl standing in front of him. His heart stirred.

She indeed was a beautiful and seductive girl, but there was something Herman didn’t like about her. He sensed a coquettish behavior not fitting for a decent girl in her. Nevertheless, Herman couldn’t take his eyes off her.

“There is one more packet box in the house. Do you want to pick it up?” asked the girl. Before Herman could answer, she asked again, “What’s your name, handsome?” She touched Herman’s chin and curled a naughty smile.

Herman only smiled in response.

“My name is Noullis.” The girl extended a hand.

“I’m Herman,” Herman responded in Osirian.

Noullis was surprised because it was the first time she heard the name that rang strangely in her ears.

Suddenly, another woman’s voice was heard from the house. “Honey, who are you talking to?”

The sexy Noullis ignored that question and continued to seduce Herman, leaning her no bra, no pants body to his. She even held her legs up a bit and pressed the knee-down part on the wall, and it roused Herman’s manhood.

Suddenly, another woman came out. She was the woman who shouted from the inside. She was also tan-skinned and dressed just like Noullis. She looked at Herman, but ignored him altogether, pouring her whole attention on Noullis who stood beside her. The woman then touched Noullis’ breast and kissed her lips passionately. Noullis returned the kiss in the same manner.

Herman was snapped out from his trance and looked away, being aware of what happened. He quickly carried on with his job, picked up the post box, and quickly went away from that spot. Damn! Herman shook his head once in disbelief and disgust. He almost got involved in an indecent love affair between two lesbians.

After he thought he has carried enough post boxes, Herman stopped and looked at the fruits of his labor on the box pool platform, just before the container truck arrived.

“Hey, not bad,” Herman mumbled satisfied to see the credits he earned. He would do that job again in another district, of course after he performed his main task, which was to search for his girlfriend, Amanda.

Herman’s Gaong account was indeed multifunctional. Aside from messaging with e-mail and things he could do with his G****e account, he could also keep the credits he got from the freelance job collecting post boxes.

Herman then walked into a diner. He picked the food and drink that was not too fancy, with the total price less than the credits he just earned. Spending too much of his unlimited credits on one meal could raise suspicions, he thought. The most important thing was, how he felt more satisfied by filling his stomach from his honest labor, not through cheating.