Victoria awoke in her favorite wingback chair. It was still dark out; the antique digital clock on the mantelpiece said that it was two o’ clock in the morning. She unfolded herself from the chair and looked around at the mess from the party last night. It had been a costume ball; Victoria herself had dressed in a Victorian style dress. Rubbing out a stiff muscle in her neck, she remembered the fun. There had been anti-gravity beams scattered throughout the ballroom, which caused continuing amusement. The music was unheard, since the musicians played instruments that emitted frequencies that excited different cells in the body but the actual ear couldn’t hear. People from all over came to the annual party at the twin’s plantation style house, and they were never disappointed.

With her thoughts on her twin brother, Charles, Victoria decided to find him. She looked in all his usual haunts; the kitchen with the instant freezing or heating appliances was empty. So was the garage where his antique combustion engine toys were next to her more practical hovering vehicles powered by hydrogen. On her way around the house, she passed a large mirror, showing herself in a disheveled way. She stopped to straighten the dress, admiring the way to old fashioned corset made her figure look, then noticed that her hair was still white from the costume party. Victoria always kept her brush with her at all times, so this was an easy fix. She programmed a lovely shade of mauve with olive green highlights into the back of the brush, and started to brush the color in. The mauve and green combination always went nicely with her orange eyes.

Finally, she found him asleep in his bedroom. He had moved one of the anti-gravity beams from last night in here, and was sleeping inside it, instead of on his normal bed. Victoria admitted to herself, anti-gravity sleep is much more comfortable than gravity sleep. He was deeply asleep, mumbling something about hedgehogs. She was highly tempted to turn the beam off, allowing gravity to act on his suspended form, thus waking him, but in sibling affection, she decided to leave him alone. Victoria’s original plan was to get Charles to help clean up the mess a bit before they went back to sleep, but oh well. The mess would still be there in the morning, and if anything stained, it wasn’t as if it was permanent. So, in the end, Victoria went and got an anti-gravity beam for herself, and went to sleep for the rest of the morning.

Victoria awoke again, but it was still dark. Confused, she looked at the clock in her room, and it said ten o’ clock in the morning. Suddenly she realized that it was raining quite hard outside. That would account for the darkness, she thought to herself. She put on some normal clothes after discovering that she was still in her costume, and went to start cleaning up the party mess. Charles had also awoken, and was already in the ballroom with a cleaning bot that followed him around like a new puppy.

“Sleep well, Charles?” she asked, kissing his cheek. “Any hedgehogs get you?”

“How did you know I had a dream about hedgehogs?” he responded.

“A big sister has to look after her brother, you know. I checked on you sleeping last night.” She teased.

“You know you’re only a few minutes older than me.” Charles grumped. “Anyway, we’re twenty five years old. I think I can take care of myself.”

“Let’s just clean this mess up. What a blast it was! I liked your barbarian costume.” Victoria replied.

An hour into their cleaning, they heard a loud pounding coming from outside. They stopped, and looked at each other.

“That didn’t sound like thunder.” Victoria said. “I’ll go take a look.”

She got to the large, double door entrance to the house, and pulled a door part way open. A thin, wet and overall ill looking man stumbled into the front hall. He had nothing with him except a suitcase and the worn clothes on his back. The man looked at Victoria with a small smile on his face, then collapsed on the floor. She yelled for Charles, who came running, and they dragged the man into one of the many empty bedrooms. Charles got the man out of his wet clothes and in between two large feather blankets, while Victoria went down to the kitchen and quickly made some hot tea. After bringing Charles the tea, she took the man’s wet clothes down to the dryer, where they would be instantly dried, mended and folded.

While Victoria was away, Charles watched over the man. He was older than Charles, probably in his forties. Even in sleep, the man’s face looked worried and tired. Charles wondered who he was and where he came from. He eyed the man’s suitcase, thinking of opening it to find some identification, but decided to wait for Victoria to return. The man started moving around in his sleep, and mumbling about his suitcase. Charles picked it up, and placed it next to the man’s hand, which grabbed the handle tightly. After that, the man started sleeping more peacefully.

Victoria and Charles were standing next to the bed, talking quietly to each other, when the mysterious man awoke. He blinked his eyes many times then looked at the twins. Victoria smiled at him and adjusted the blankets on him.

“It’s alright. You’re safe and warm. I’m Victoria and this is my brother, Charles. We own this house, and the island its on. Do you need anything?”

“No, miss, I’m quite fine. Thank you for your hospitality. If I may inquire, where is this island located?”

“Oh, it’s a very special island. It goes everywhere in the ocean, so right now, I think we’re somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean. Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll come close to some ship or non-moving island where we can drop you off.”

“That’s quite interesting. If you don’t mind, I think I shall sleep some more.”

The man promptly fell unconscious again. Charles started pacing the room, looking worried. Victoria sat on the edge of the bed and glanced at the suitcase. She started reaching for it, when Charles came up to her.

“You shouldn’t touch it, Victoria. He’s worried about it, and wouldn’t like you to bother in his affairs.”

“I should know who I have under our roof, Charles. I don’t want to be sleeping in the same house with a murderer, do you?”

She reached again for the suitcase, and this time Charles didn’t stop her. He was as curious as to the man’s identity as she was. The suitcase was a normal, if beaten up, suitcase. Brown with a few spots, just large enough for a change of clothes and a few other things. Victoria set it on her lap and clicked open the clasp. There wasn’t much in it. Just an old fashioned journal full of strange pictures and writing, another shirt just as worn as the one the man had on, some strange round, flat metal objects, and the man’s identification card. Apparently, the man’s name was Fredrick, he was forty-two, and was unemployed. The only curious thing in the suitcase was a silver orb wrapped in green velvet, just large enough to sit comfortably in the hand. The twins looked at each other in confusion, then Victoria put everything back in the suitcase. Just in time, since the man, Fredrick, was stirring in his sleep. They placed the suitcase next to him, then left the room quietly.

Downstairs in the library, sitting in chairs next to a large fire, they talked about what was in the suitcase.

“What do you make of that, Charles?” Victoria asked as she settled in to her chair.

“I really don’t know. Those round metal objects are nice; maybe they’re jewelry or something. That notebook or journal, whatever it is, it’s mysterious. I couldn’t make out a word of it. It could be in an ancient language or a code of some sort. As for that orb, I have no clue.”

“Well, since we’re in the library, maybe we can do a bit of research to figure out what the objects are.” Victoria responded. She flipped open the arm rest of the chair and revealed some controls. After pressing a button, the chair’s legs retracted and the whole thing lifted off the ground. It was a levitating chair, using small air cannons and an anti-gravity beam for control. Victoria rose and went towards the ceiling high bookshelves. She removed books on ancient artifacts from many different time periods, and threw some down to a protesting Charles, who had stayed on the floor.

The books in the twin’s house had been copied from obsolete printed books, and were now quite thin and modern. There were no pages to turn, and almost no actual reading involved. The book read itself to the reader in either the normal or annotated format and showed the reader pictures and small movie clips that went along with the text. This way, they learned that the small round metal objects were called ‘coins’, and were the archaic version of their credits, which could be read from a small chip embedded in a person’s fingertip. The writing in the journal was harder to discover, but they thought that it might be an ancient language called ‘Old English’, but they weren’t sure, and didn’t risk taking another glance at the actual journal. Victoria and Charles decided to come clean with Fredrick when he was better, and ask him about the objects in the suitcase.

Screams broke the silence in the house. Victoria and Charles, both engrossed in different books, had forgotten Fredrick. They both jumped and ran upstairs. Panting, they burst into the bedroom Fredrick was in. He was in a terrible state. The feather blankets had become twisted from his thrashing, and the end of one had ripped open, spilling feathers everywhere. The man was hanging out of the bed, throwing his arms over his head, as if protecting himself from invisible threats. He was screaming incoherently with his eyes wide open, though not seeing anything around him.

Charles tried lifting him back into the bed while also trying to avoid the blows being aimed at him. Victoria tried to wake him from his terrifying dreams and also tried to avoid being hit. Neither succeeded. Fredrick abruptly stopped everything and fell limp. Charles was able to finally wrap the man back up in what remained of the feather blankets, then tended to his bruised jaw and Victoria’s bruised arm. Although painful and inconvenient, the bruises were easily treated and faded away after a few minutes.

They were down in the kitchen when Fredrick appeared. He had put on the mended and dried clothes they left for him, grabbed his suitcase, and then went to look for his hosts. They were sitting at the head of a large mahogany table, each holding some sort of drink. They looked up at Fredrick’s polite cough. Instantly they jumped up, exclaiming that he should be resting in bed. He waved them off, replying that his short rest was enough for now.

After a short, awkward pause, Victoria exclaimed, “What were those strange objects in your suitcase?”

“Victoria!” Charles hissed, blushing. “We didn’t mean to look; we just wanted to know who you are.”

“Yeah, we didn’t want to be murdered in our beds.” she put in.

Fredrick waved off their explanations. “Its all right, I would have done the same thing.” He opened up his suitcase and laid out the objects.

“This is a journal” he said, pointing at the book. “People in my time write in them; usually their thoughts or the events of their day.”

Next he held up the round metal objects. “These are coins. They are used to trade for goods that I need.”

Next he held up the sphere. “This…is something special. I don’t know what others call it, since I just found it in the corner of an old abandoned building. I’ve taken to calling it my Silver Orb.”

“How original” thought Victoria. Something didn’t seem right about the orb, though. It looked like it should involve some sort of teleportation, or maybe a different kind of appearance altering device. Or it could be a plain and simple bomb.

“Aren’t you curious as to what it does?” She asked out loud.

“Well…I don’t know…I rather like just looking at it. Awfully pretty little thing.” Fredrick picked up the orb in question and started rolling it around in his hands. A wistful look came upon his face as he stared at it moving around and around.

Suddenly he stopped. “Why so many questions? They’re mine, I tell you, and you can’t have them. Not for a moment!” he grabbed up his belongings and ran out the doors.

“Odd sort of fellow. We never asked to have them.” mumbled Charles.

“Oh, come on. We have to go to him and apologize. He might hurt himself.” She rushed after the man, calling his name. Charles shrugged and followed his sister.

After two hours of searching, they couldn’t find the man. He wasn’t in the bedroom upstairs or hiding in the garage, or anywhere else in the house. Charles had started looking for him outside, shouting through the rain. “How can anyone hear me through this” he thought to himself.

Charles decided to go back in and wait for the rain to slow before going back out to look for him.