The Difference Between You And Me {Petekey}

Chapter four

She led him down a hallway and through a kitchen to a room with several mattresses lined up on the floor. She wasn't kidding when she said they housed other people, it seemed. Nobody else was in the room, which was lucky for Mikey, but it seemed that there were previously people sleeping on the mattresses, as recently as that morning. He wondered what time it was. It wasn't particularly early, nor was it anywhere near evening. Possibly around noon, he estimated.

"I think that bed in the corner is free," she said, pointing to one of the mattresses. "The rest of the people staying here are working or looking for jobs. If you can, we encourage you to get a job and give us at least some of your pay as rent. Do you understand?"

Mikey nodded, eager to get alone.

"Alright then. You should probably stay in here today, I don't want you going back into town and trying that again. We have some books in the study if you need something to do," she offered, taking steps towards the door. Mikey gave her a slight smile, trying to force her out of the room with his eyes. Eventually she left, closing the door behind her, and Mikey's eyes immediately flew to his left wrist, where he expected his Communicator to be, displaying a menu page for him.

It wasn't there.

He furrowed his eyebrows, turning it around, trying to find his damn Communicator. Unsurprisingly, it wasn't anywhere he couldn't see on his arm. He looked at his right wrist, lifting up his sleeve to look at it. And there it was, right above his Messenger, not doing anything as he looked at it.

Usually, these devices were controllable via eye contact. All you had to do was look at them and they would show their menu screens. Maybe it was because it was on the same wrist, he hoped, but something told him that when he moved it to the other wrist it would have the same problem.

His suspicions were confirmed when he unclipped it from his wrist and affixed it to his other, only to see that it not only didn't show him the screen at all, it also coughed out a couple sparks. If it doing that didn't guarantee his inability to go home at least for a while, he would have been laughing at it. Of course it would only do that when he needed it to show him that it still worked.

Normally, when he Travelled for work, he kept a small tool kit with him in case something exactly like this were to happen. But since this was a spontaneous and unapproved trip, he had no such thing. And it wasn't like he could ask anyone back home for help either.

He forced himself to calm down. He would try to get through this alone and try to get back home. It might take a while, but surely he would be able to return eventually, even it were in several years' time. That thought scared him. He pushed it away. He needed to focus. He closed his eyes, as if doing so would put him in the mindset of somebody who knew more about this than him.

With the minimal knowledge of how the device worked, it was obvious that the cause of the problem was the interfering signals from the Communicator and Messenger. The first thing he should do would be to separate the two devices. He opened his eyes and looked down at his wrists. He had already done that. Awesome, step one out of the way!, he thought to himself, trying his hardest not to freak out. What to do now, though?

His mind came up with absolutely nothing. Considering the situation, he had no means to get the thing to work again. There was nobody he could ask for help. 

It was then that the utter loneliness of his situation hit him. There was nothing he could possibly do, no one knew his situation. He was navigating what may as well be an entire different universe, with no one at his side to guide him. 

He thought of what could be going on back in his own time. Had anyone realized he was missing yet? He had been there for less than an hour and it was pretty late when he decided to leave. Did the people at Flasch know he was there? He knew that they could track where their employees were from their Communicators, but obviously his wasn't working.