Four Knobs, One Stream
This is based on the prompt from Writing Excuses Season 12.19: Structure on the Fly.
The Hilton lobby was familiar as a favorite sweater when Chrys stepped in, the chandeliers dropping from a curved ceiling, the plush carpet underfoot, the gleaming marble reception desk. Everything was in their place from the photographs and holographic models she’d studied.
The plan had gone smoothly so far. The time portal had spit her into a phone booth off the side of a lonely highway. With a bit of fiddling, she had gotten the replica iPhone 8 set up, and it only took a 20-minute walk along the highway to get enough cell signal to download Lyft.
A few trucks drove by as she waited for her ride, kicking up clouds of dust and exhaust that settled in a fine layer over her suitcase, despite nearly every driver slowing down and sliding curious eyes from her head to her sneakered feet.
The Lyft driver pulled up in his Corolla and his eyes grew distant as soon as they exchanged initial “hello”s, and he quickly turned up the radio. Chrys appreciated his surly silence - she knew her cover story like the back of her hand, but it was still best to remain as unnoticed as possible in this era. 90s rock music was their only companion for an hour as they slid past fields, then suburbs, then into the pulse of downtown New York. Chrys made sure she occasionally scrolled on the iPhone, because it was what people in that era did when killing time in a Lyft ride, before they’d invented embedded devices.
She’s set her drop-off location to a hostel 10 minutes away from the Hilton, because a seeming hitchhiker staying at the Hilton could raise eyebrows, although she doubted her driver would care enough to raise his. For that, she gave him 5 stars.
In the safety of room 296, Chrys unzipped her suitcase. Beneath all the quarter-century travel essentials - polyester and denim, a few swatches of millennial pink, a polka dot pouch stuffed with smaller pouches of temporary travel makeup - she retrieved a small, black box and reviewed her notes on an archaic tablet that looked a lot like the iPhone but with much more storage and battery life.
Okay. Deep breath. All she had to do to fix the future was sync the precision mine with the tablet, slip it into the drying tar on Hayward Street after the construction workers left for the day, and make sure it detonated as President Trump’s car drove over it on his way to a rally in 23 days.
This whole mission would be a lot of waiting.
Chrys figured she might as well treat herself to a bath, in this era where freshwater wasn’t being rationed yet. The tablet notes had explained that baths meant relaxing in a tub of warm water, like a resort hot spring but in the comfort of your own house. It was less efficient for cleaning than the high-pressure showers of Chrys’ time.
Chrys peeled off her gray cotton tee and skinny jeans in front of the strangely silent mirror. Instead of news headlines flashing across the top and an analysis of her body composition as she moved, like she’d set up her mirror at home, she could only see herself. With her semi-permanent cosmetic tattoos scrubbed off with lazers, her cheekbones were softer, and she could see faint shadows cradling her eyes. She looked simultaneously younger and older. The new hair - chestnut, brushing her shoulder blades - would help her melt into the fast-moving New York crowds. The tiny brown scar on her left bicep where she’d had to temporarily remove her microdermal for this mission.
She shivered as her toes touched cold porcelain, then swished the curtain closed around her. She turned her attention to the bathtub controls and frowned. They had touchscreen technology in this era, so why was she faced with four knobs of various shapes and sizes?
She searched through the notes, but bathtub instructions had slipped through the cracks between a full log of Trump’s movements the month leading up to the rally and a guide to New York’s hottest new restaurants.
It took her a few minutes to figure out that the leftmost and rightmost knobs spun, albeit reluctantly, the former clockwise and the latter counterclockwise. She bit back a yelp as freezing water splashed down from the showerhead above. Kicking one of the other knobs forced water to flow out of the spigot as well, but the showerhead continued to spit out a cold stream, and now a purple bruise was blossoming on her foot.
Chrys groaned in frustration and spun the two side knobs back to their starting positions, although now the spigot stream refused to stop completely, dribbling a trickle that alternated between freezing cold and unbearably hot.
Now what? Even if she was content with foregoing the bath and just sticking to showers, she didn’t know how to take a shower, either. And going three weeks without a shower would be quite noticeable.
Chrys folded herself into a fluffy towel and went back out to examine the documents on the desk that the hotel left for their guests. A travel magazine with a creased cover. A menu boasting their room services offerings - ham-and-cheese sandwiches, sushi rolls, wine. Another New York restaurant guide, slightly greasy from the fingertips of past guests. A directory. Chrys found the number for the front desk and rang it up. “Hello? Could you explain how the shower works?”
Mitch’s voice, with its familiar irritation, replied on the other side. “Really, Chrys? We’re gonna have to do this again?”
Chrys sighed. “I guess we do.”
She tucked her belongings back in the suitcase and pressed a button on her tablet to exit mission simulation #14.
Mitch and Ana were hovering over her when she opened her eyes, the vertigo of logging out of the simulation familiar now but still unsettling. They gave her a few minutes until her world stopped spinning.
Ana asked, “Ready to debrief?”
“Yeah. We’ll have to do more research on the bathtub. I think we’re getting close to doing the real mission, though.”
Ana nodded. “Good luck.”
The three of them parted ways - Chrys to the debriefing room, Mitch and Ana to pore through decades-old instruction manuals for bathtubs.