Two

This is a dream. It's all been a dream. This can't be real. Emily thought to herself as she lie upon the uncomfortable wooden floor of the shed, clinging desperately to the blanket she was provided. Even before she opened her eyes she knew something was wrong, or at least not right. She took a deep breath and sat up, opening her eyes to the bright sunlight of a time where she didn't belong, and Rhett basking on the rock where she had perched herself the previous night.

"Finally awake? I thought you were going to sleep all day." Rhett said, smiling at her. Emily sighed, not returning his smile. "I'd bet you've got a lot of questions, and you'd like some answers. Where shall I start?"

"How exactly did I get here?" Emily asked nervously.

"I don't know, exactly. The key here seems to be that you were displaced through time. It's rumored to have happened before, though there has never been any proof. Well, I guess you're proof, though I don't expect anyone to believe either of us. I found you in the closet, with the door blocked by concrete. There was no way you could have gotten in there without my knowledge, and you certainly weren't in there for more than a few minutes. So, coupling that with the fact that you claim to have been born over one hundred years ago, the only answer is time displacement." Rhett said frankly.

"And there's dangerous stuff here, that wasn't here one hundred years ago?" Emily asked, sitting up straighter.

"Yep. Really nasty stuff."

"Well, then I need to protect myself." Emily said, rising and walking determinedly down a narrow street.

"Where are you going?" Rhett said, curiously, springing up and matching her quick pace.

"Home."

"I'd hate to say it, but there's probably not much left to your home."

"Well, there's one way to find out." Emily said, picking up the pace and turning down an even narrower alley.

"Why are you going home?" Rhett asked.

"To get my possessions."

"But what if they're not there?"

"We'll worry about that if it happens." Emily said, grinning back at him as they rounded another corner.

"Is this it?" Rhett asked, as Emily stopped and faced a house in town. The second story looked demolished, but the ground floor looked unharmed from the outside.

"Yep. It would seem my bedroom is gone." She replied, looking up at where the second floor used to be. "Well, let's see if anything important remains." She said, bounding up the steps and turning a key in the lock, which clicked as the door opened. Emily spun around to face Rhett and said, "You can't come in though."

"Why not?" He replied, slightly offended.

"It's my home. I'm not letting a stranger inside."

"I rescued you from the closet. I'm your only helper in this strange and foreign land!" Rhett said indignantly.

"I don't care. You stay out here."

"Fine." Rhett said, sitting on a large chunk of cement that was protruding from the ground, and watched Emily step cautiously inside, shutting the door behind her. Ten anxious minutes later, Emily reappeared with a rather full messenger bag slung over one shoulder and a smile on her face.

"What all did you find in there?" Rhett asked, looking at her with curious eyes.

"Everything I was looking for, plus a little more." Emily said, clearly happy with her discoveries. "It's really kinda nice in there, better than that old shack anyway, we should stay here tonight."

"Wait. First, you won't let me in your house, now you suggest we spend the night there?"

"I was being silly, There's no reason you can't come inside. I guess I was just afraid of what I might find... I wanted to go in alone. Go inside right now if it would make you feel better." Emily said, smiling at him.

"It would, thank you very much." Rhett said, and opened the door into the rather dusty living room with a rather plush looking sofa.

"See, I've even got enough blankets." She said opening a closet that was under the rubble-strewn staircase and pulling out several flannel blankets and shaking them off before shoving them back in and closing the door.

"What's the rest of the house like?" Rhett said, walking into the next room, which he discovered to be an equally dust covered small bathroom, and the room next to that, which turned out to be a study with another sofa, though this one seemed less plush.

"The kitchen seems to have collapsed, so we can't get to the basement. It's okay though, this place should be good enough for tonight."

"And do you have someplace better in mind for tomorrow?" Rhett asked, having satisfied himself that this home is safe from the terrors of the night.

"Maybe. But first, I have some questions. Let's sit." She said, and they sat on the living room sofa, sending up clouds of dust. What the hell happened to the shy girl from this morning? Rhett thought as he sat beside her.

"Okay, what are your questions?" Rhett asked after a few minutes of silence.

"I'm trying to be tactful." Emily said, a puzzled expression on her face.

"I don't care if you're tactful or not. I'm a rather hard person to offend."

"Biomech?" She asked, her eyes flicking to the unnaturally metallic bits of Rhett's body.

Rhett sighed, and smiled slightly. "How did I know you were going to ask about that? This is going to be a little difficult to explain. Medical science advanced greatly in the past century. They started out small. Someone lost a thumb, they created a mechanical device that could serve the same basic purpose. The problem was, the body rejected the new being. What they ended up doing was forging a new kind of titanium, using the recipient's own genetic material. See, then the body wouldn't reject it, it was too similar. It grew from barely functioning thumbs in to entire limbs and people that could be made almost entirely of metal. Does this make any sense yet?"

"A bit, but not really."

"Okay. Here, maybe this will help. Give me your hand and close your eyes."

She did, shifting closer to him on the dusty sofa in the process. He took her and ran it down his arm, starting at his shoulder. "See, this is natural skin and tissue." He moved her hand to where the natural tissue ended, midway between his shoulder and elbow. "Do you feel the joint there? It's nearly seamless. The metal feels smoother than skin, but other than that, what difference is there?" He didn't stop to allow her to answer the question, just moved her hand to his elbow. "See how warm that is? It's like living tissue, only harder and not quite as warm. Do you feel it pulsing? As if it breathes? It does, in a sense. It is a part of me, as if I were born with it. Open you eyes and take a good look. Though the joint is smooth, mechanical, it's also alive and human. This technology is has changed medicine. No longer do they have to fight to save limbs they can simply replace. There are some differences though, and it has been argued weather they are advantages or disadvantages. I can't feel your hand on my elbow. That's why they always try to save the important parts. Like hands." He twitched his fingers in demonstration. "I can still feel. It's an important sense, really, if you think about it."

"Why?" Emily asked, staring at his metallic elbow and leg.

"Well, people never have liked being considered disabled, or at any disadvantage at all. I mean, people had been making and wearing prosthesis in your time, right? Isn't it-"

"No, I meant why do you have them?" Emily asked, all tact completely forgotten.

"An accident. I was pretty messed up." Rhett said quietly, and Emily saw the sadness that lingered behind his eyes and decided they were done with that topic for the moment.