Sleeping is hard, so I review what I know so far. Part of what they do tell you are the rules that they have found do not bend, found by unfortunate circumstance.


    1. You cannot jump to the same time slice twice.


    Your second entry breaks the connection of your first, and both copies of you are immediately returned to the present, with a very messy conclusion. This was confirmed with fruit, since one test is never enough for the scientists but none of them volunteered for the second. Related, you cannot jump to your own time because it causes a confusion of the bio signatures. Also tested with fruit. They have, however, shaved the delay for reentry to 6 minutes from your disappearance. This makes it so that you can complete a month of work in the past with a half hour in the present, including recharges.


    2. Only organic material goes through, hence the fruit tests.


    One titanium joint was left inside the pod with the bio signature after the disappearance of the traveler. That is a horror story the street rumors actually had right, of a man trapped in a remote test location for a week, missing a piece of his internal structure. I will let your nightmares fill that one in, like mine have. This also meant that the founder of TI? could not simply move gold back or bring vintage items forward.


    3. An anchor point is needed, hence the use of the pods. If your bio signature is lost, so are you.


    This one still has some unanswered questions, because the return looks the same (pop-zip) but the traveler does not actually return. Do they reappear somewhere/sometime randomly? Are they swept out of existence? Do they find the "transcendence" that some fridge groups preach about, and it is so wonderful they dont want to come back? No one has answered any of these yet.


    4. You can cause chains of bad things, but they are always bad and don''t. Just don''t.


    Part of the Time Warden''s job is to identify who does what bad thing, and then a message is forwarded and TI? unplugs your pod. It is in the contract; your bio signature gets purged if you step out of line. They left "bad things" rather vague, but the importance of the rule was still firmly impressed upon us.


    Perhaps that will be one of the things they explain in this orientation meeting. I am not getting any more rest here, odd tingly sensations and that bad penny flavor. I suppose I should get up; time isn''t going to wait for me. My name is John Gnáth, I am a TI? client, and I am a nobody. That is part of the selection process that everyone goes through. TI? often accepts us street dwellers, because we are hungry for what they offer and don''t have a way to fight back if something goes wrong. Because of the travel limitations we are screened for inorganic implants, not that many of us could afford implants of any kind. They look for our background information, or any signs of us being connected to one of their opponents. They don''t want to send their opposition into the past, things can happen. They give us a physical, because they don''t want us to die in the first zap. Yes, they get a report instantly if the person lived or died, and can purge the pod and line up the next "client". But hiding a body in the past for a week until it disappears into nothing is an unpleasant job. Finally, they spend a little time teaching us these rules. They want to make sure we wont mess up their operations, because that would cost them money and money is the reason they are doing this whole thing.


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    I was fortunate to be on a good street corner for the last two years. I received enough donations to get some balanced nutrition occasionally. That made the physical simple. The charity was not enough for me to get a cybernetic implant though, so I missed some job opportunities but also met that requirement here. They control who goes where, so I trust them to obey their own first rule. That leaves the fourth one, which is really the only one I have control over. I am so far out of knowing what is what, I don''t think I could do anything big enough for them to notice anyway.


    The room is dark, and the bed is small. I am not complaining. I have not had a real bed in years, and this is a comfort that I am going to take full advantage of during my tenure here. Since the clock is the only think I can see at the moment I reach for it, and find the base of a lamp right next to it. The lamp does not respond to my touch, so it is probably more "retro" technology. This is going to take awhile to get used to. There is a rocker switch on the base of the lamp, so I press it. The light reveals a small room, sparsely furnished. I have a tiny table with two chairs, though I do not know who the second one is for. There is a little kitchen area, a length of counter above a few short appliances, with a toaster oven and a small stack of paper on top.


    I get out of the bed and go over to the papers. There is a little welcome paper with a few stains on it, clearly reused for each person who stays in this room. It explains that the appliance under the toaster oven is a mini fridge that has eggs in it. There are also instructions for how to form an aluminum foil bowl to hold the egg in the toaster oven, and how the controls work. I refill my water cup from the sink and drink while my breakfast heats up. One egg and two small pieces of bread to make a toasty breakfast sandwich. The welcome paper tells me that the Warden of my job will come by and collect us all for orientation at 8:00am.