He is standing in a forest of skyscrapers. Near a hedge, so at least only one person can obviously see him in his present state.

"...did your teleporter miss?"

"Guh?" says Lucien, ever the wordsmith.

"...twice?" adds the person, glancing at Lucien's ankles. "Or was it a really gross dungeon."

"Um????"

"Who are you and where were you expecting to be?"

"West 44th street and Broadway, I'm -" he makes the mistake of glancing at the scenery to orient himself - "JESUS CHRIST."

"...are you now."

"What? Am I - oh. Um." Oh god he did just shout that. "No, I'm Lucien. Sulzberger," he says without taking his eyes off the LABRYINTH of GIANT GLASS BUILDINGS. 

"And in which city is the intersection you had in mind?"

"New York." he says still staring.

Is this.... Lucien does not actually have any decent guesses. A secret extremely expensive exhibition for the next World's Fair is... a terrible guess. 

"Okay, so, your teleporter missed, this is Toronto. Do you have cell service here?"

"Cell service?"

"For... your phone? Or did you drop it in the dungeon of ick."

"I... have a phone at my parent's place? I was in a basement not a dungeon." He can maybe stop staring at the buildings now. ... After one more glance. 

"Okay, well, fire your plumber, I guess? Do you want me to call someone for you."

"Um." Eye contact, yes, he can do that. "Yes that would be appreciated - I can reimburse the cost."

"The... cost... of... okay, uh, I'm starting to think that my assumption that you're an esper with an old-timey aesthetic for funsies who teleported here because your teleporter wasn't very competent might not be correct."

"I... um." Wow Lucien has not felt this lost since he accidentally attended a session of an advanced marine biology seminar that he thought was an introductory course in physics.

"I don't recognize the words old-timey, esper, or teleporter. Or funsies."

"What year do you believe it to be?"

"1920?"

"Cool, cool, that's over a century too early, how the fuck did that happen?"

Oh. ... Honestly that makes a lot of sense given the everything.

"I was attacked by... some sort of large animal? I think? I am not sure if that is related."

"That could be related, if there's some kind of time travel themed dungeon sending time travel monsters through time to time travel people! I am going to alert the government about that real quick." Phone actions.

Lucien is going to set down the oil lantern he's been holding this entire time.

"Anyway, an esper is a person with superpowers, we started happening in the 1970s. At the same time, hostile pocket dimensions called dungeons started spawning, mostly in cities, they kidnap people and release monsters. Time travel is a new one. Unless it is the oldest one of all thanks to the time travel, but it is at least outside the paradigm within which we understand dungeons."

"Are the giant glass buildings and your glowing square part of that?"

"Exploitation of exotic materials found in dungeons has affected technology but I don't specifically know it to have anything to do with skyscrapers or cell phones. A hundred years is a long time for research and development."

"Well. That's good to hear,  at least."

"I'm so glad you approve. You can probably sell your lantern and anything you're wearing that survives the laundry to a museum for startup funds. ...which you are likely to need because I'm pretty sure there aren't time travel espers who could send you home even if there's a dungeon doing it."

"Ah."

Lucien will have emotions about this later.

"Do you... know where I might stay in the meantime?"

"I don't think Ren's put anyone in our guest room since the last time I checked, but first I am going to need to lay out a bunch of plastic bags so you can make it to the shower without wrecking the carpet... Thisaway."

"Thank you, I'll be happy to pay you for your troubles once I can afford to,"

And then Lucien can follow!  He stares in wonder at the plastic bags when they are procured. 

"Don't worry about it, I make esper money and the tip about the time travel dungeon getting where it needs to go is really the important thing here." Plastic bags are put and he is shown to the shower. "I don't know exactly what the state of indoor plumbing was a hundred years ago, how much of this needs explaining?"

"I uh, think I understand how all of this works."

"Cool. I'll go get you something to change into. What is the safe defusing procedure for this kind of lantern?"

"Uh, you can pour out the oil by opening this and tilting it over - I'm pretty sure the flame is already out."

"If the flame's definitely already out and there's not a pilot light or anything I don't need to pour off the oil. Be right back with a change of clothes."

He goes and comes back with boxers and sweatpants and another T-shirt and a pair of socks, and puts them on the toilet tank. "There you go. Holler if you need anything. I'm Haru, by the way, don't remember if I already introduced myself."

Lucien showers and dresses - eventually deciding that the boxers go.....under the pants?? 

"Your clothes are going to take some getting used to," he says after he's emerged, tugging at the shirt sleeves distractedly.

"I bet! Looks like you figured it out. So far no other reports have come in of temporally displaced persons, but of course that could mean anything, maybe most of them land in five years."

Haru's sitting on a couch that faces away from the door to the bathroom. Over his shoulder a cat face peeps suddenly.

"Possibly someone could find something about my disappearance in the public record?"

"I'm looking but I don't have much historical research background and had to guess how to spell your name."

"And maybe you just aren't that historically important."

"If the New York Times archives are still around I'd expect them to -"

"Oh, uh, yeah, my cat talks. That's new, it's not that cats have always talked."

"Ah."

"That's good I suppose."

"They still mostly don't. I'm very special." Flap.

"Around when espers started appearing, so did hostile pocket dimensions called dungeons, which spawn monsters. If a dungeon dies and there's one of its monsters outside of it, the monster powers down a lot, sometimes still exists after that, and is not necessarily still hostile. That's where Cricket here came from."

You know what, this isn't nearly as weird as being attacked by a monster a century into the future where people wear silk clothes that expose their elbows and tap on glowing rectangles to learn things. 

"Well, it's a pleasure to meet you Cricket."

Cricket settles back down in Haru's lap.

"New York Times archive is more than I had to go on, you want to give me a more precise date and spell your name for me?"

Sure, he can do that.

Anything about a guy by that name disappearing if he searches the New York Times archives?

There is indeed an article about the disappearance of the junior reporter and grandson of the owner of the New York Times, Lucien 'Tunnard' Ochs Sulzberger. More than one article actually - there was a sizable search for him that ultimately went nowhere.

"Yeah, here you are -" He holds the laptop up for Lucien to read.

"Ah."

Lucien reads for a bit.

"...I suppose both my parents would be dead by now."

"Yeah. If you knew any small children you were fond of there is an outside chance but it's very outside."

"None in particular."

"Do you have a way of proving that you are this guy, for anyone who'll only put the work into figuring out what's up if they're really sure you're not a hoax? I saw you appear, but teleporter espers are a thing, so that's not conclusive."

"Uh, one of those articles mentioned a recent photograph for reference - can you see the original paper and not just the text?"

"Probably." Dig dig.

It's sort of a terrible photo but it's definitely Lucien.

Haru pulls his phone and takes an up to date picture of Lucien to corroborate. "Alrighty. My agent's looking for somebody who works with historical textiles and will have a guess if your stuff will survive the washing machine and know how to hock it. I can put you up for the short term but with no idea if there's about to be a thousand temporally displaced persons I don't want to be too committal about it, but, like, don't worry for at least a week about food and shelter. What're your most pressing questions?"

He has sort of forgot all his pressing questions...

"Uh, can I use one of those devices to look at the Times archives myself?"

"I don't have a spare but take a seat and you can have my laptop for a little bit."

Sure, he can do that.

"How do I..."

"You move up and down to change what part of the content is displayed like so, and if you want to interact with something on the page you wiggle your finger like this till this shape here is over it, for example, voila, and then you tap. So that's how you'd go to any of these dates, for example, or turn the virtual page."

Lucien can get the idea well enough. He proceeds to navigate through recent history with one finger, very carefully tapping and dragging things, sometimes needing to do so multiple times. 

Haru keeps an eye on the use of his laptop but does not otherwise interfere. He'd want to read the future news about his disappearance too.

It's pretty unnerving.

"Is it possible for me to look at other news?" 

"Yeah, from when?"

"Uh - if this was a physical archive I'd flip through quickly looking for large headlines maybe. I just want to start getting... caught up on what happened in the past century."

"For that I think maybe Wikipedia, not the newspaper." He finds the Wikipedia article on the twentieth century for him.

Lucien stares at the picture of the Earthrise taken on the moon at the top of the page for several seconds.

.... Why is this the thing that he's fighting back tears about???? He does not understand.

What if he scrolls down and attempts to read instead of crying in front of this very kind stranger. 

"You okay?"

"Yeah, it's just a lot to take in."

"A century's a long time."

"Yeah."

"If you click on any of the blue phrases or words they'll take you to an article about that thing."

Lucien clicks on the advances in science and technology link after two tries and reads that for a while.

"And the first one I found you is just the twentieth century, it's the twenty-first now."

"Is there an article for that too?"

"Of course!"

There were a lot of other articles to click on in the first one....

"I might want to spend a rather lot of time reading this encyclopedia to help me catch up with events,"

"Wikipedia is great. You can't believe everything you read on it, since it's user-editable - you can try it yourself if you find a typo - but it's much more accurate than you'd expect given that."

"How does it stay accurate then?"

"Small army of dedicated volunteers keeping track of recent changes more significant than typos."

"Is it encyclopedia-sized?"

"Oh, bigger, much bigger."

...

"How big?"

He checks his phone. "Seven point four million articles."

"Wow."

"That's really good."

"Wikipedia is awesome."

"How many people help write it?" 

"That I don't know off the top of my head - I mean, there's people who write entire articles and then there's people who correct typos, either number would be misleading in its own way."

"I suppose that makes sense - have you ever edited it?"

"Sure. On the typos level, mostly, but once I got so annoyed with something on a page about a dungeon that I wrote up my take on my blog so I could cite it as a source. They don't let you post original research directly to Wikipedia."

"Your blog?"

"It's like a newspaper column that I publish all by itself, online."

"Oh, do a lot of people have a blog?"

"Most people don't but anyone can, it's free."

"Can anyone look at them?"

"Yes! Though it can be hard to find the good ones, there are ways to search the internet but you have to do a lot of the quality filtering yourself."

"Is the internet a sort of library?"

"Yeah, kinda. The biggest least curated library of all time."

"...That's sort of amazing, I think?"

"The internet is awesome."

"How does it... work?"

"Sounds like the kind of thing you can learn on Wikipedia." Haru opens the page for the internet in a new tab.

Lucien gets lost very quickly, but helpfully there are other articles which explain all the things! Such as one on global communication networks in general, and then one on submarine communications cables (which Lucien already knows about) and then one on cable layer ships (which Lucien has always wanted to ride) and then one on transatlantic communications cables and then on TAT-1 in particular and ...

Eventually Haru puts a plate of macaroni and cheese in front of him.

"Oh wow this is delicious," Lucien manages to say inbetween Wikipedia articles on coaxial cables and cable television.

"Thanks, I made it according to package directions myself."

"Can everyone just make high quality food now?"

"What you have there is KD, it's déclassé as anything. Whether it is 'high quality' is subject to some debate. Do you want ketchup?"

"You put ketchup on macaroni and cheese in the future?" Lucien has had both separately.

"Some people do. It's optional." He offers the squeeze bottle.

"I suppose I can try it."

... How is this bottle supposed to work. 

...he takes it back and squirts a dollop of ketchup on the side of the plate.

"That is a more impressive piece of technology than I expected in ketchup bottles."

"The globalized economy is very cool."

"Because... it requires a bunch of different processing steps that different places do?" Lucien guesses.

"Because if someone invents a better ketchup bottle they can get a little fraction of the profits off selling condiments in better bottles to billions of people."

"Oh wow that is very cool."

"The improvements in the plastic industry and stuff probably helped too though." He ketchups his own KD and sits down to eat. Cricket's got halibut.

"That's the same thing the bags were made out of, right?"

"Yep, plastic's all over the place, it's cheap and can be any shape and color and it's lightweight and usually waterproof."

"And it can hold it's form after being squeezed into a different shape! That's the really impressive part about the bottle. Well, that and being transparent."

"Depends on the plastic, some of it will stay deformed, but yeah."

"I suppose the plastic bags did that....How is it made?"

"I think it is mostly derived from petroleum but this is again the sort of question you can ask Wikipedia. Sorry, I'm more talkative when I'm backlashed but I haven't run a dungeon today."

"How do I ask Wikipedia things?"

"Like this." He selects the relevant part of the URL and types "Plastic" to replace it.

A page to read! 

Eventually: "Guest room is up the stairs, first door on your right, whenever you want to crash for the night."

"Thank you," He should probably do that soon.

(He doesn't actually manage to for several hours, because so long as he stays on the laptop he can think about Wikipedia things and not about his-life things.)

When he wakes up there's a note that says Laptop is where you left it, please don't do anything besides click around Wikipedia without supervision. Help yourself to the muffins on the counter. I have a dungeon appointment and will be at that and then my partner's most of the day but you can call me with the phone next to the coffee machine at and there's a number.

Lucien gets up, has a muffin, mentally plans out a letter to his parents about the recent events, goes to his room to quietly cry for a bit, and then returns and looks up dungeon on Wikipedia. 

Dungeons are hostile pocket dimensions! They started appearing at the same time as espers. They abduct people - sometimes with monsters but often just magically causing people to be in them instead of wherever they were before. They almost never kill people right away, so there's plenty of time for espers or the military to go in and retrieve victims and find the dungeon core and kill it, unless it's a very difficult dungeon for whatever reason. A dungeon which is not killed will eventually vanish, complete with anyone or anything inside it, and come back bigger and scarier in months or years.

Espers?

Espers have lots of exciting powers! Here are some famous individual ones! In addition to their dungeon work many have civilian applications in various industries! Cultural handling of espers around the world! Etymology of "esper"!

Ooh! What industries??

There are espers in construction, medicine including psych care, electrical generation, law enforcement, and various rarer options for rarer powers.

Lucien wants to look at all of those, and this time is going to manage to go at least somewhat breadth first so he gets to each.

Around lunchtime the phone rings.

.... Lucien does not know the etiquette for this, but in his time he would answer and take down a message if asked, so possibly he should do that?

"Hello?"

"Hi Lucien, it's Haru. Wanted to see how you're doing and if you want lunch delivered or anything. I'm backlashing so I'm very chatty right now if you have any questions Wikipedia couldn't answer."

"I'm doing well and lunch would be nice eventually though it is not at all urgent. I read up about espers but didn't actually get to the section on backlash before I got distracted by industrial applications of powers - what is it?"

"Using our powers gives us symptoms. Acute varies esper to esper, but if we get a lot very fast, or leave some sitting for a long time, it turns into generic chronic pain and chance of organ failure and stuff. My backlash makes me lonely."

"Ah, that sounds awful," and explains the request for questions. "What powers do you have?"

"I'm selectively imperceptible and I can also fly."

"Oh that's cool."

"Uh, if you want more questions I guess I'm curious about whether there are commercial applications for flight?"

"In theory, but it's backlash-expensive to keep up, I mostly use it tactically in dungeons that I don't wanna or cannot run around in."

"Have they made any progress in medically treating backlash?"

"There's pills for it but they're not... good... like, I have some for emergencies but I try not to have any emergencies for which I'd need the pills and not June, my partner."

"Your partner?"

"My guiding partner. We've got amazingly compatible backlashes, I'm lonely and she's hidey, but we recover pretty slowly most of the time anyway because of how she's hidey. I'm at her silo right now and she's under a blanket with her feet sticking out so I can put my feet on them."

"Uh... that sounds socially complicated?" 

Lucien is pretty sure foot touching is a married couples only sort of thing.

"It's the least socially complicated option really, short of blood transfusions, and she can donate to me but I can't donate to her so we can't do much of that and save it for situations where my power is particularly essential for a dungeon."

"Huh, do you tend to do the same dungeons?"

"Sometimes, not always. Our powers are pretty different but they work side by side all right on, like, generic dungeons. I'm more likely to get called in for psychic dungeons because I can no-sell ambient psychic effects without needing someone to shield me, especially if the terrain calls for occasional flying, and she's especially good for older, scarier dungeons with lots of nasty monsters, especially if the terrain is good for a running human and has bottlenecks for her to trap them in. Her power is making the monsters all chase her instead of someone else, and she's also a speedster."

"Huh, can she think really fast in addition to moving fast?"

"In terms of reaction time yes in terms of cognition not so much. It's hard for her to avoid using her powers in normal civilian situations, so she's usually carrying at least a little backlash."

"Huh, just because of reacting quickly to arbitrary things?"

"Yeah. My power activates automatically whenever psychic or sensory contact I don't want happens, but fortunately I'm normally fine with people being able to see me, so I don't have this problem unless someone's being terribly rude, which almost never happens."

"Huh, what's the ratio on time active to time you need to spend recuperating?"

"Depends entirely on how much I use what powers. If I keep thirty monsters from seeing me and a dungeon from hypnotizing me that's more expensive than if I keep six monsters from seeing me and the dungeon's not trying. It also depends on how much backlash June has; if we're closer to the same amount recovery goes faster."

"Huh, what sort of things do psychic dungeons...do?"

"All kinds of incredible nonsense! Most recent psychic dungeon was just making people catatonic, it was mostly only annoying to me because none of the people I grabbed out of it would chat on the way out. One time there was one that gave everybody, like, Cotard's syndrome, where they believed that they were dead and were shambling around like zombies trying to blend in with the actual zombies, but conveniently for me they weren't very good at it."

"Oh wow... Are conditions like that curable?"

"Generally people are fine apart from mundane trauma when you get them out of the dungeon but some of them you can't get a victim through the portal without a psychic esper clearing them."

"Huh, they have to be cured to get out?"

"Ish. In some cases there is a physical visible mark on a victim's body and that's the sign that you've cleared them enough."

"Huh, that's... almost convenient of the dungeon?"

"Dungeons are concerningly convenient in a lot of respects and I do not know why and it bugs the heck out of me."

"Are there theories?"

"Nothing very compelling. Espers and dungeons appearing at the same time makes me think we're connected somehow, but 'connected somehow' isn't a theory."

"When was that again?" It was mentioned in the article but Lucien got distracted quickly by the industrial applications pages.

"Seventies. It was a mess, nobody knew how anything worked, a lot of big name dungeons that recur all the time were ones that got away back then, we didn't know about guiding right away..."

"That sounds like it would make for a... very chaotic time."

"It was not immediately clear that we weren't looking at the apocalypse, apparently, but we pulled through and most economic models think that dungeon material exploitation is doing the economy favors. Also cuts down on foreign adventurism and distracts your run of the mill warlord some; anyone who has a competent combat force has lots of reason to put it toward clearing dungeons."

"What sort of material exploitation?"

"Dungeons contain stuff! Most of the stuff is boring but sometimes a monster part or a landscape feature will turn out to have cool magical or material properties, some of which can even be reverse-engineered. Have you read enough Wikipedia to know why superconductors are exciting?"

"No, why are they exciting?"

"They're important for electrical engineering reasons and some have been reverse-engineered from dungeon materials, it's the standard example. There's also batteries that can store some kinds of esper powers, and this frictionless stuff that hasn't been reverse-engineered yet but the dungeon that produces it is recurring so every time it pops up somewhere people harvest a lot of it while the rescues are ongoing. And there's Cricket, who came from a four-dimensional dungeon and has changed some since then but can still navigate in four dimensions, so he's useful in other 4D ones."

"Huh, does reverse-engineerability imply they were themselves manufactured technology? Also how do four dimensional dungeons work?"

"We have no idea how dungeons do things, but apparently 'time travel' is a possible factor. I do think they have to be drawing on human concepts somehow."

"Why?"

"They'll produce dragons, which never otherwise existed, and winged cats, and zombies, and lava elementals, and yetis. They don't do anywhere near as much creature- and concept-remixing that isn't of a kind that would be or has been interesting to a human, they're drawing on mythology and fantasy. Yes dinosaurs, which are very interesting to humans; not so much extinct fish that look to us mostly like extant fish. Rather few fish in general, most of the surface of Earth is water and almost every dungeon has breathable air."

"Is it possible there are dungeons that only open up underwater, so humanity just doesn't notice?"

"Dungeons like cities. They will appear in smaller towns sometimes but not even on, like, a farm, let alone the ocean. I've heard of one spawning on a cruise ship though."

"... Huh, that is really weird. Did the cruise ship one move with the cruise ship?"

"Yup."

"They really don't sound like a natural phenomenon."

"As in you think they're artificial or what?"

"I guess I must? It just doesn't sound like you'd get that behavior if they weren't created by some sort of intelligence."

"Yeah, one hypothesis I sometimes toss around is that there's aliens involved."

"...are those known to exist?"

"Nope."

"Does Cricket have any insights?"

"Not really. He can't remember much about before his dungeon died. He started out with, like, a personality, and he was able to speak English - though I had to teach him to read - but not a lot in the way of memories or propositional knowledge."

"Huh, have you placed the accent?"

"He sounds local, as though he's from the place his dungeon spawned."

"Have people talked to uh - was the word monsters, that seems rude - before dungeons died?"

"The word is monsters and Cricket doesn't mind being referred to as a monster cat. There... are dungeon monsters who talk. They're very rare. There's a big-deal psychic dungeon called Nightmare which kidnaps people specifically in their sleep and then physically manifests the components of their worst nightmares to act out while they're in there, and sometimes that involves humans who talk. The other examples are, like, dungeons with parrot monsters."

"Do monster cats only gain the ability to talk after their dungeon dies as far as you know? Also that sounds absolutely horrifying and does not leave me optimistic about whatever created the dungeons being at all benevolent - though I suppose everything else doesn't seem exactly encouraging on that front either."

"Nightmare is plausibly the worst dungeon, a lot of the time people just wind up in some kind of compartment of the dungeon bored out of their minds till we get them. And yeah, the monsters in Cricket's dungeon did not talk before its death."

"Are there any good dungeons?"

"Not, like, actively good. There are dungeons that don't take very many people but none that take zero. There are dungeons that don't particularly hurt their victims, lots of those, but if nobody gets them out the dungeon eventually despawns on its own and everybody inside is gone."

"Oh. They aren't there when the dungeon returns?" 

"Nope. They come back refurbished, same themes but bigger and - fresh, and none of the previous victims or even remains."

"What does being bigger translate too?"

"Literal size, the extent of the dungeon itself."

"Do they otherwise come back worse, or just bigger?"

"Sometimes there are other changes, especially the very first time a dungeon gets away and comes back it'll often be more - tightly designed, I want to say? - but after that mostly just bigger and able to kidnap more people."

"How many people get kidnapped a year?"

"That's a good question but not every country is cooperative about reporting stats so I don't have a very exact figure. Hundreds of thousands, maybe low millions. Most of the kidnappings aren't much more disruptive to the kidnappee than, say, being stuck in an elevator for a few hours, but the worst dungeons get the most press and I personally see a lot of psychic dungeons because I can shield out their effects."

"It's rather disappointing that people still aren't cooperative about reporting stats."

"I'm sorry we have not improved on that front as much as you might have hoped."

"I was planning to push for that if I took over the Times - insofar as I'd have influence to do that."

"Does the New York Times have... applicable international clout? Or, uh, did it."

"Some? But I think I would only need clout with a few of the right people at the League of Nations - not even top people just the sort of people who could report to their bosses that it would be nice if this program kept this sort of records and stuff like that. Also I'd push New York to become a model other places can point to as a good example to follow, which I think can do a lot on it's own."

"Very American of you."

"How so?"

"Hard to verbalize, that just seemed like a very charmingly American thing to say."

Lucien is making a friend!

"I've generally spent a lot of time thinking about ways to use the leverage I have - well had - to improve things on a broader scale. I suppose I will have to think of new plans."

After sitting with June for five hours Haru hangs up the phone and comes home.

It is a very informative five hours!

"No reports of other time travelers so far, so I am prepared to outlay somewhat more resources than I would if there were going to be two hundred of you. Bought you a laptop," Haru says, handing it over. "So I can have mine back without separating you from Wikipedia."

"Oh! Thank you. I am not sure how expensive a laptop is but I'll repay you as soon as I can."

"I make esper money, don't worry about it, I wouldn't buy them for two hundred of you but one's no big deal."

"I would really rather repay you.... though on reflection that might be related to how I am used to be fantastically wealthy."

"I think the New York Times has changed ownership a few times since you were in line for it and it is probably not going to revert to you."

"Yeah I don't think I'd want it to - it's not really my place to run it anymore. If that makes sense."

"The business has presumably changed a lot."

"Yeah."

"I wonder if there's a way to parley being from the past into something with the ability to improve the world,"

"Personally I go around making esper money and then donate a lot of it to charity but if you have something more direct in mind... not sure, historians will be interested in you certainly but they aren't known for directly applying their knowledge to comfort the afflicted."

"I wonder if there's some sort of important cause that's gone out of fashion that I can put back in the public eye with whatever attention I get for being a time traveler. Talk about how the future is great but people have forgotten this one important thing."

"Well, nothing that seems obvious to me, but my main claim to knowing anything about history is that I like old books."

"Mm...who do you donate money to?"

"Mostly the Against Malaria Foundation but also some esper and dungeon research guys."

Lucien would like to know specifics about all of these things!

They've all got websites and because Haru has sat with June for hours today he's going to get those.

There are other websites besides Wikipedia?? This is such a good future.

"Wikipedia's a great first port of call for somebody as fish-out-of-water as you, other things you're more likely to want context you don't have and can't get by clicking a convenient link, but yes, there are loads of websites."

"Is there a list somewhere?"

Snort. "What an idea. No."

"Is it because they are too many? I really hope it's because there are too many."

"Too many and not at all organized. But you can search through them, at least the ones that are linked - like blue Wikipedia text - to anything else." Behold, Google.

"How does it work?"

"Don't actually know. Google it."

Can he.... Type "how to use Google" at the end of the URL??? 

"Type in here," Haru says, poking the search box.

Oh there's a second special place to type for Google, neat.

"And there are each links to other websites about how to use google?"

"Yup."

Lucien clicks on the first option and reads for a bit.

"You can search with your voice?"

"Speech to text? Sure. Cricket uses it a lot."

"Does it... call an operator who types for you?"

"No, no, there's software doing it. Software means computer program, like the one that fetches and renders websites for you."

"... how?"

"Google it!" sings Haru.

"...You are very charming sometimes."

And Lucien can google it!

Awww he's cute but he's from a hundred years ago, let's not go there.

Does Lucien want to continue to stay in Haru's house indefinitely or would he like an AirBnB or something.

He would prefer not to intrude on Haru's hospitality indefinitely - if it's not a burden to pay for an AirBnB not to far from here would be very helpful. 

One of Haru's agent's colleagues has dug up some historians for Lucien to talk to; it's not a ton of money but it'll cover lodgings while he figures out something more permanent.

Being self-sufficient is really a load off his back. He uses his copious spare time to catch up on history and figure out how to navigate the modern world.

And Haru is always happy to hop on the phone with him after a dungeon if he has any questions, though he doesn't do a dungeon every day.

Lucien feels a bit weird about enjoying the days Haru does do a dungeon so much but he does nonetheless! 

On this particular day Haru isn't doing a dungeon and so Lucien is taking advantage of his newfound discovery of Peruvian-Japanese fusion restaurants in Canada. He really does love the future so much.

The restaurant has a TV on the wall, playing the news silently with subtitles on. The range of seafood available is eye-popping and the portion sizes are huge.

The future is really amazing! Lucien orders a stew that involves mussels, shrimp, scallops, and halibut, as well as something called a California roll because he is in an age of abundance.

The California roll comes out quick, the stew will be another few minutes.

...

Lucien messed up his order and the kitchen is broken now, isn't it. Or the cook is really angry at him for ordering too many kinds of seafood??? People are staring at him so probably it's that because that would be more obvious given that everyone heard him order. How about he not eat anymore of the California roll even though it's too late and he can ask a waiter to cancel the seafood order and maybe give it to someone else? That sounds like it could make up for things at least a bit - he raises his hand slightly so one of the waiters will know he realized he needs to change his order. 

The waiter is going to make eye contact and nod but not come around instantly, he's with another table.

The news switches over to typhoon damage in the Philippines.

Oh god what did he do. Lucien is going to stare in rapt attention at the television.

Here is the estimated death toll and how many people have been reported missing and are as yet unaccounted for. There's PROPERTY DAMAGE.

Oh god. That's... he can maybe save enough people to make his life not a net negative to the world on that front, but he doesn't think he can ever build that much. And even if he did those people would still be dead and the Philipines would still have been wrecked and why would anyone want to let him try in the first place, much better to keep him somewhere where he can't do that again.

"I.... I'm sorry," Lucien says loud enough so everyone in the room can hear him - which probably isn't loud enough since the kitchen can hear him and so can the people on the news and he knows it won't actually do any good but... "I-"oh no it's hard to apologize when you are hyperventilating "-I'm sorry could someone please contact the police I know I shouldn't be out here and oh god please I, I " and words are hard again apparently. 

"The police?" someone says.

"The military works too and might be better given what happened, I'm so sorry I know it doesn't help but I really really am."

So many people judging him and they're right to do that and that doesn't stop it from being the worst feeling in the world.

"He maybe needs an ambulance."

"Yeah, I'm calling 911."

"I don't know why I would need an ambulance - oh, I don't think I'm going to hurt more people near here but I guess it's not the worst idea considering but whatever it is should be fast before anyone else gets hurt."

"Just - stay in your chair, 'kay, man?"

"Yes, yes I can do that."

Eventually an ambulance comes. They want to know if he's oriented to time place and person.

"I'm Lucien Sulzberger I'm from 1920 and this is Toronto but I guess I was in the Philippines and I think a lot of other places but I can't remember any of them but I know you can."

...uh-huh. How old is he?

19.

Okay, they're going to take him to the hopsital, does he have an emergency contact?

His parents are dead because he time traveled and Haru hates him or he'd be here instead of staying away right now so: "No."

....okay. They think he might be having an esper awakening, does trying that concept on for size help at all?

He has no idea what that is which he admits is very unreasonable of him considering it's a concept about a thing that happens to him specifically and probably nobody else.

...so, does he know about esper backlash? Espers aren't born that way, they get that way after a week of backlash.

Oh god that's why Haru hates him isn't it.

Who's Haru? Is he possibly an emergency contact?

No because Haru hates him and already knows about this just like everyone else? Haru is the extremely good esper Lucien met and at least he's done that one thing right though he's not entirely sure how he did that.

........does Haru have, say, a phone number.

Yes, is it important for Lucien to be able to hear Haru rather than just the other way around for some reason?

Let's go with yes.

Well he hates that so much but he's not so terrible that he won't give the phone number. Well given everything he's done he possibly is that terrible but he's going to give the phone number anyways.

In the meantime here is a room for him to hang out in without any implements he could use to harm anyone.

He is pretty sure he managed to hurt all those people in the Philippines without implements are they sure about this plan being enough?

They are pretty sure he will not be able to harm anyone in the Philippines from in this room.

Well presumably they are thinking about it a lot so he will trust them about it.

Haru gets there after about an hour, carrying Cricket in his arms (he had a bit of an argument about bringing Cricket but he'd need to sit with June for another two hours to not bring Cricket). "Lucien?"

"I'm really really sorry I don't know why you came since you hate me but I guess being far away doesn't make any difference I'm so sorry." He is hugging his knees about this real hard.

"They think you might be an esper," Haru says, "which -" He takes a step closer, and - "huh -"

So, it might not loom very large in Lucien's narrativization of what's going on right now, but something is dangerously wrong with him. Like the sense of doom that can signify the onset of a heart attack, all the brouhaha in his verbal brain is downstream of something being dangerously wrong, and when Haru's close enough, it's a little less dangerous, a little less wrong.

Haru takes two more steps and puts his hand on Lucien's forehead, as though checking for fever.

Hunger is the best seasoning. Water never tastes better than when you're so thirsty your throat opens to admit a quart of it in one long grateful shotgun draft. Relief is its own flavor of pleasure and Haru's hand on Lucien's head is the only reason human beings have ever had to touch each other, possibly the only reason human beings bother having physical forms at all, definitely the only important thing going on right this second as it sucks all the danger and all the wrong out of Lucien through his skin.

"..."

"...which you are, congratulations!"

Lucien is going to rub his face against the incredible hand a bit maybe.

"-that.... is that how I... did those things?"

"Did... what things?"

Why doesn't he know, Lucien has no right to this hand given what he's done.

"I....I killed all those people in the Phillipines. And destroyed billions of dollars of property."

And quietly: "If you want to take your hand away now you can do that I'm sorry I can't move away I just. I can't." 

"...no, keep my hand, it'll help."

Lucien is just going to rest his face for another second and...

"Um."

"Did I... actually not kill any people in the Philippines?"

"As far as I know you have never been to the Philippines at all, and you don't even get your powers till you're done awakening so you certainly didn't do it by magic."

"That... I'm not sure"... Lucien is going to lean in to Haru's extremely good hand a bit more. 

"The Philippines was on the TV and I know it has to do with me but I guess I don't know how?" he says hesitantly.

"Well, it'll be easier to figure out when you're not backlashed." He lets Cricket out of his other arm and provides a second hand.

Lucien is just going to sort of nuzzle the hands all friendly like for a minute.

"Do you maybe want me to check you out of the hospital and take you home? This actually goes faster proportional to skin contact."

"Uh, this hospital thought they were able to keep me from killing people again? Though uh. If I didn't kill people in the first place maybe that isn't necessary... And I guess they can keep watch on me at your place anyways?"

Lucien thinks about it for a moment. 

"I don't know if I'm competent to make decisions right now? Probably everyone has already noticed this."

"Well, that's true, but you still have feelings and if being out of the hospital scared you I wouldn't do it."

"I... really don't want to stop having your hands on me."

Hoo boy. "Backlash is like that. I'm not actually sure how this works while you're mid-awakening but if it feels like it's helping it's probably helping. Are you up for walking if I hold your hand or should I carry you?"

... Why is that such a hard question to answer.

"Walking works? I think."

"Alrighty, up you get." Haru brings him to the relevant powers that be to get him discharged.

Lucien apologizes to the powers that be for taking up all their time and also for preoccupying them so much though admittedly they had good reasons and it's not like everyone else isn't doing the same.

(Can he and Haru be more holding hands with him during this walk? How does that work?)

They can sort of entwine their arms a little bit, it'll help if they roll their sleeves up. But once they're out of the building - "I think I should fly you back to my house, this'll work better if I have more backlash to more closely match you."

"Wow.... thank you." That Haru will fly about Lucien specifically seems like it is probably a really big deal?

"Do you have a preference about how to be carried?"

"Anything you think is good will do?"

Okay then. Bridal style works well with distributing weight when he's in the air. Scoop and up above traffic level, Cricket flapping after them.

(The feeling of guidance slides more sweetly into place as Haru's backlash accumulates closer to Lucien's level.)

Lucien is two parts clinging to Haru real hard and one part 'this must be what it is like to have a personal guardian angel'. He is not sure if that part makes sense but he's having trouble thinking clearly about it under the circumstances.

It's farther than Haru would usually fly, but he's carrying a compatible person who doesn't seem averse to having a conversation. "They told me you started trying to call the cops on yourself in a restaurant?"

"Yes?" Lucien was already assuming Haru knew this. 

"And this had to do with the Philippines somehow? - we can talk about something else if you want but I'm gonna need to be talking about something."

Th subject is definitely too important to avoid!

"Uh, yeah there was a TV report about how I um. Killed a bunch of people and did billions of dollars of property damage in the Philippines. ... Which I now think I probably did indirectly somehow I guess? It's probably really important to figure out exactly how though - since keeping me in a place won't prevent it from happening again. Um... if killing me would probably you should drop me but that thought seems like maybe it isn't right and I am not sure it would?"

"I think the, uh, remote-control disasters are... handled. I'm not gonna drop you."

"Are you sure it isn't like, costing billions of dollars to handle? That would also be bad even if it might not be as obvious except presumably everyone is paying enough attention to notice that even if ordinarily they might not be."

"That would also be bad, but, good news, espers make lots of money, usually not billions but it'll depend what your powers are."

Unfortunately Lucien was raised by economists.

"So.... people are expecting me to pay them back but this might in fact be possible? I'm not sure how much that helps - probably some but it would be much better for me to get the powers and put the money to the next most important use and not have everyone preventing me from wrecking more places in the first place."

"Oh, I don't think they do expect it, but if you did feel so moved to help out with Philippines disaster relief. Also solves your historians-aren't-that-rich problem with supporting yourself."

"Um, just checking - they don't expect it because they think I wouldn't bother to help given that I caused the problem in the first place?"

"I think they mostly don't expect it because it would take the form of a charitable donation and the baseline rate of people making charitable donations isn't in their favor."

"And they assume the baseline would apply to me because why?"

"Well, they don't know very much about you."

".... are you sure about that?"

"I guess I haven't asked them but that'd be my guess. I think your backlash is affecting how you reason about this."

"Oh."

"I think I can tell that is the case but can't tell if it's because the backlash is effecting how I weigh things in importance or if it's about how I think it's appropriate to respond or what i think is actually happening? ... I'm guessing it's at least a bit of that last one?"

"I think it's at least partly the last one. Like, if you were responsible for some kind of disaster in the Philippines that would be a big deal."

"But I'm not? Even indirectly?"

"Seems really unlikely but if you think it'd make you feel better I can look it up when we're at the house."

"Yes please. Also um, don't prevent people from telling me otherwise even if disagree with them maybe?"

"...well, I'm kind of of two minds about that because on the one hand I'm disinclined to censor your communications but also if someone thought it'd be fun to screw around with my backlash delusions I'd be incredibly upset with them and would want anyone purporting to be looking after me to shoo them."

"I... think I trust you more than anyone else alive by a lot but I am not sure I trust you more than everyone else if that makes sense?"

"Okay. I don't really expect anyone to come try to talk to you about this, but I really don't expect more than one person to do it, so how about I get, like, one to three free passes to send people packing and after that I will have to concede that there is a vocal minority sizeable enough to be worth listening to - also don't listen to Cricket, he's a jerk just in general, he'll probably leave you alone at my request but if he does say something."

"Okay though uh - if someone is a representative of a larger group like a prime minister or a general I think that should also count."

"Yes, if the prime minister tries to talk to you I will let him."

"Uh, any Prime Minister not just the Filipino one."