Chapter Text
Collette used to be one of those people interested and curious about the past, wondering what it would be like to live in the past, meet famous people and how people lived in such simple lives. And now? Now, she’d like a fucking running toilet, the internet and The Office back. Also, an idea as to how the hell she’d been tossed a century and a half into the past would be real cool, but that doesn’t seem likely.
She’s been here now for over ten friggin years, thoughts of returning home are long gone. On the off days she decides to visit Strawberry, the stupidest named town ever, she buys a newspaper and sees the year, 1898. It doesn’t even seem real. Though the year was set to change soon and it was time she head out to a new town. She hadn’t explored down south, other than Saint Denis, maybe something new would be good.
Before all this, the time traveling that is, she was a normal woman.
Once upon a time she was twenty-two with a happy family and a promising future. She was smart, is smart. As a child memorization came easy, a perfectly photographic mind made going through school feel like she was cheating. The other kids sure as hell thought she was. There was nothing she couldn’t remember, so she figured she ought to put this talent to work. Certainly not to help the miserable people from her class, but she knew there were people out there, who haven’t done a thing and yet got smacked by life’s shit stick. With that mentality she decided to go to school for biology and biomedical engineering, she was set to snag a decent job, maybe designing the latest prostheses or something. Then life decided to take it’s swing at her with the shit stick by tossing her into the past.
Those first couple of years here were a definite low. Just trying to get her footing in this new world, there was bound to be some stumbles with a little suicidal contemplation. Yea, it got dark, but she’s made it, for the most part.
Originally landing in Saint Denis, one could only imagine her horror at realizing that was as good as it got. They called that a city, civilization! She would’ve laughed had it not been so horrifying.
Prior to her arrival here she had never seen a horse, and now, well now, she knows the names of horses. Morgan, Tennessee Walker, Mustang! The galloping horse on Mustang cars now made so much sense. Who could have known there were so many names for animals that all do the same thing? Crap and freak out at everything, unseen snakes in particular.
However, considering what the surrounding land outside of Saint Denis looked like one could count her lucky. Modern woman like herself being plopped in the closest thing to modern this time had to offer.
Problem was, she had been stupid. And careless. She had also been desperate and terrified, looking at the women who had no prospects for jobs in the tolerated sexism of the past. Just thinking about debasing herself or dying in the gutter, unable to cope or survive during America’s simplest times. It was too much to bear. So she fled to the biggest factory in the town, the things she knew and could do, the inventions she could create ten, twenty years before they were meant to be discovered. If business hadn’t changed all that much from her own time then only an idiot would turn her away. Cornwall, the fat greedy bastard, sadly was not an idiot.
At first it was fine, well not fine but pretty standard as far as workplaces went. Annoying boss, crappy working conditions and close to no benefits. She was the one that had given Cornwall a better way to refine kerosene that would also be cheaper. Created the rough drafts for the cable cars he now had running throughout Saint Denis.
He had paid her too, handsomely, by this time’s standards anyway. Anybody trying to pay her 120 dollars for one of her designs she’d burn the blueprint, but 120 dollars here and she could buy as many chocolate bars as she wanted. It enticed her into being able to live with some small modicum of luxury that came standard in her time.
Then he began to make terrible requests from her. Improvements for guns, cheaper ways to make dynamite no matter the health risks and more and more memos began to appear. His mounting frustration and anger at her were near palpable through the letters as she refused every single one. He felt she was being impudent and rebellious. He had entreated her to a position that would never be afforded to a woman, not here, not now, and this is how she repaid him?
She also had an unfortunate run in with the Italian mob, or whoever they were. All she knows is that a pack of men fresh off The Godfather set started appearing on every street corner. Paranoia had grown so much that she became hyperaware of the Italian language so much so she decided to learn it.
She had practice, having had to very quickly learn Mandarin before her internship in Shanghai started. What she realized, after eavesdropping a bit, was that they were definitely after her and not for Cornwall, but for themselves. They knew she was smarter than the average person and they wanted that for themselves.
One would think there was no place to go but up. They’d be wrong because Cornwall, goddamned Leviticus Cornwall, began to put a few of the pieces together. Not the whole story, but he began to figure out the main stuff. Like her not having a family here with her. Not sending mail, not meeting up with anyone, he knew she was all alone. Nobody would notice if she just disappeared, per say. Which is exactly what he did to her, made her disappear.
He came one night while she was working and just took her away. He had locked her in a room for days and days. He used all manner of threats and still somehow stood like he was on a pedestal. Never mind that he had her feet burned once after a failed escape attempt. Never mind that he locked her away in a cold damp cellar, nothing but darkness and enough water to wet her tongue. Never mind that he ordered other people to practically torture her.
They beat and brutalize her all they wanted, but still, she didn’t give in. In that time she took solace in a quote she had read on some girl’s twitter: Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage to move in the opposite direction. She aims to embody that touch of genius, and just for the sake of saying it, the girl who posted it, Maddie Marcus, was a bit of a bitch, just saying.
Nevertheless, she didn’t aim to be a martyr. So Collette bided her time. They had to get sloppy, sloppy enough for her to escape. They could starve her sure, but they can’t starve her brain! Actually, doesn’t the body start to digest the brain in cases of severe starvation? That didn’t matter, a year after her capture, Collette escaped.
It wasn’t sly. It wasn’t clever. She stripped herself of her clothes, doused herself in the oil they used to lube the machines and slipped out of the tiny cracks in the building. One of the ones Cornwall was too cheap to fix, even if it allowed vermin to creep in and sicken his men. Just wait for the unions to gain power, they’ll rip him a new one.
It had been nighttime and she had made a run for her house, the place she had bought that Cornwall evidently never thought to check, a small mercy that. It had everything she once owned from her time, the most important being her smart watch and charger, as well as her wireless headphones. Taking everything else she could, she began running like mad.
This escape in particular was the moment she realized she needed to learn how to ride one of those scared neighing monsters. Riding in a carriage didn’t make for the quickest getaway, plus she got the worst sort of introduction to the Lemoyne raiders.
They attacked the carriage and shot the driver. The horses were driven off the road and into the bayou. There were alligators in that bayou and boy they did not like horses clomping around their big scaly bodies. It was a literal mess and she was so not a fighter.
All Collette could do was run, carelessly draping herself across the one horse still alive and rode it’s panicked escape into the swamp. She eventually arrived at a small fishing town between the Kamassa River and Lagras. The people of the town, if one could call it that, were kind to her. Helped her in ways she could never repay. Though she tried, most of everything she had was lost in the carriage, but she was clever.
They had a decent economy stemmed in fishing, problem was, fish spoiled unless heavily salted or refrigerated. The people here were too poor for either option. Canning, was a good alternative. Repurpose the mason jars they already had, smack together a crappy but stable pressure cooker, and they were canning their fish in no time. The cannery in Saint Denis unnecessary. Screw you Cornwall!
After that debacle, she spent some time in the surrounding towns, helping where she could. Nothing so big that it would leave a mark. Just helping a family here, a small business there. Cornwall was everywhere though. Nobody was actively searching for her, but if she caught the eyes of the wrong person she knew it was time to run again.
Like now, it was time to leave Strawberry. Not because anyone had given her the look, but just because she wanted a change of scenery. How novel was that? Maybe Cornwall was starting to chill out.
She had set her sights on a town in New Austin called Blackwater. It only took a week or two to get settled down there. Her home was pretty decent and the town was grow on her.
Currently she was sitting in the dusty saloon. She had just stopped at the bank where her money comes in biweekly from her invention of the ballpoint pen and to pay the taxes on some choice, oil ridden land in Texas. She’s not in it to be rich, but if she could not be dirt poor that’d be great too. Especially since she has to pay just to take a bath!
“Ah, Miss Coldplay,” also since the start of her life on the run she’s been using band names to cover her tracks. Not one of her better ideas, but it got the job done.
“Hey Cleg, you got my bath ready?” She asked, knowing it would be ready. She had been here a few weeks now, and she had been a daily showerer when plumbing had been a thing, so she was a daily bather in this time. In this land of playing it loose with hygiene she was easy to remember. Especially to whoever owned the establishment that had the bath.
“Certainly Miss, right through the doors, you know where it is.”
Collette should have known better than to stand near the doors of the saloon, she should’ve and yet she was still standing there. It came as a surprise to no one except her when she got smacked in the back by the doors. It was a shame too, because today she was feeling a little fancy and had worn a nice dress.
“Sorry there hun, didn’t see ya.” The woman who said it couldn’t sound anymore uncaring if she tried. Collette picked herself off the ground and refrained from rolling her eyes. It was some blonde curly haired woman and she had two men in tow on either side of her.
One with scraggly orange hair and a ridiculous hat, he could scream that he was Irish and it still wouldn’t be as loud as how he looked. The other was a rather muscular, but thin young man, with sandy hair and the slight beard everyone in this time had because gillette has yet to exist. Huh, there’s a thought, wonder if the safety razor was made yet? Collette thought, lost in her head about a possible new revenue.
She did that often, ordinarily it was harmless, but also ordinarily she wasn’t just bowled over by a trio of outlaws. Lost in her recollection of what a safety razor looked like. It was nothing too complicated, metal and a few gears. Of course she’d need a cast, maybe take it to a blacksmith-
“Hey, the lady’s talkin’ to you,” Collette looked up at the man, a slight accent to his voice. He was the meaner looking of the three, a mischievous glint with just enough violence that it was visible. As Collette looked at him and then to the guns hung at their hips, all the color drained from her face.
At the very core of her she felt her temperature spike from horror. She had heard people speak about how the west was being tamed and that gunslingers and outlaw cowboys from legends were going extinct, but not for one second did she think they existed or that she’d meet them. It must have been instinct or something, but everything about the man that had spoken to her told every part of her to turn and flee.
“Oh, uh, no trouble at all, uh.” She stammered out.
“Miss Coldplay? Your bath, ma’am.” Cleg called out once he saw that she was still in the main saloon and not in her fifty cent bath.
Thank God for Cleg! “Coming! Thanks.” Collette all but bolted away. She hated this place, she hated this place! She disrobed and lowered herself into the bath with a sigh. For just a moment she could pretend this was her little apartment in Arizona and she had finally complained and gotten her tub fixed. No interruptions, just silence in the small bathing room. She had told Cleg in the beginning of the week not to send those uncomfortable bathing girls unless she needed help dressing. Curse the corset.
She stayed in the bath for as long as she could, still warm because like always she told the innkeeper to boil the water as hot as they could before she came in. She’s smart enough to know she can’t get syphilis from contact, but too grossed out to really care. So she’ll boil it...for safety. Man, she missed the internet.
Collette rose up out of the tub and put her clothes back on. The sounds of the bar were getting louder and more raucous. She preferred her baths at night, that way she didn’t have to sleep with sand in uncomfortable places. However, she now ran the risk of bumping into the unruly patrons in the bar.
Even in 1899, the bar scene still just was not her thing, maybe even more so. Just men eyeing women and starting fights. It took everything in her not to turn her nose up at it all and just hide away in her house. Straightening up, she left the bathing room and weaved over to the bar. A bit of food and she’ll head home.
“Evenin’ miss, what’ll it be?”
Choices, choices, “If you’ve got a stew cooking, I’ll have that and a beer.” He put her request in with the serving girl and slid her drink over to her.
Once the food came she began to think. It just might be time for her to find a place to settle down for real. It’d be nice to have a place far away, where she could make a water filtration system she trusted, make an engine to power a small cabin where she’d live and just disappear. It sounded like both a great and terrible idea.
Collette knew if she did that, if she got that place somehow, that would be where she died, and that was a bit too much for her to reconcile. She knew she wasn’t getting home, hell she doesn’t even know how she got here, and yet, to think this is where she’ll die, in some forgotten grave decades before her parents are even born...it was just too much.
She sunk her head into her hands, rifling her fingers through her wet hair. “Now, wot’s this ‘ere? You’s all right there miss?”
Collette huffed a large exhale, “Yea, I’m fine thanks.”
The man took a seat on her right, boxing her into the corner of the bar she sat in, making her instantly regret sitting here. It was astounding how she had gone from wanting to make a difference in the world to wanting the world to not even notice her.
Alfred Nobel was a good cautionary tale, any good she could do would be counterbalanced by evil, homeostasis of the world or something. All she knew was that she wanted no part in the evil bit, so anonymity it was. The man next to her was snorting wetly, and looking over at him, he looked to be either drunk or sick.
She sighed with a curse to her caring nature, she cared too damn much for these poor people all living in developing world level filth. She had passed a town that actually had people dying off from Scarlet fever of all things! So where she could, as she had been doing, she’ll help. “Hey Cleg, a second bowl please.” Collette turned to the man beside her, “You hungry?”
He gave her a boyish smile, and she took halfhearted notice of his missing teeth, “Tha’d be real nice o’ you it t’would. Oi, barkeep ah’nother round too, if ya would.”
Collette sighed, before smacking her hand to the back of the man’s neck, it was clammy and warm, yea he was sick. “Cancel the beer for him, if you’ve got it, I’d like a bit of salt, water and lemon.”
“Wot?”
“You’re sick or you’re about to be sick, just shush and drink what I give you.” She commanded. Cleg came over with her requested items, the lemon looking a little bruised, but the fact he had one at all was good enough for her. She mixed a bit of the lemon and salt into the water, gave it a good swirl and passed it to her intruder. “Here, drink all this and you can have this...” Collette patted her pockets and realized her purse was missing. Really? Really? She got pickpocketed again? “Well, just drink that and eat the soup, especially the broth, alright?”
Cleg came back over with the second bowl, “Turnin’ in for the night, miss?”
“Guess so,” Collette said, in her new status of being robbed, there wasn’t much else she could do for tonight. “Just put it on my tab, I’ll be by tomorrow, same time for my bath.” She was about to leave before turning back and saying, “And don’t give this one anything other than water or that water and juice mixture I made for Margie. Put that on my tab too. Night, gentlemen.” She left, annoyed.
Mugged, again!