Original Flash Fiction, THE TIME TELLER, Plus a writing challenge, with a prize!

Add your flash fiction piece, 200 to 1000 words, following the rules at the end of the story!

To help expose good writers and offer a chance for writing development, I've created this challenge for fiction writers on steemit. The rules follow the story, thanks for playing!

Washington polished the dash of his 2065 Chronohopper, looking at his wrist chronograph impatiently. If they didn’t show in the next 20 segments, he was hopping, with, or without the damn jewels. As a Time Teller, it was his job to know “when” it was, in all times, and right now, it was late.

The Chronohopper was designed for intra-atmospheric light speed jumps, moving from one time to another, without changing locality. That made for a lot of limitations. For instance, like now. He was waiting on his expeditioners to return via historically unreliable 19th century ground transport with a collection of “borrowed” diamond jewelry that had an expiration date.

Once the diamonds had been retrieved from this time, they were to be delivered to a very impatient customer, who held the keys to the master chronograph, and could, at will, decide to send them spinning off into time, rather than being dragged back through the centuries to deliver the jewels in 2121.

It was a science, stealing from the past. The current crew was attempting something new, known as a parallel snatch. They transported back into to a location, but in a slightly off kilter dimension, so that, in their own dimension, the jewels were never seen as stolen to begin with. Getting caught, however, meant the same as it always did, only they would be stuck in a dimension that was not their own, in another place and time.

That’s not what bothered Washington. His cut came from the crypto currency that would be transferred to his wallet upon delivery, and he knew that transporting items across dimensional lines was unpredictable at best. The diamonds might stabilize and last forever, or they might only be pretty to look at for a few minutes, up to a day, before slowly fading back to their original location on the continuum. He didn’t really care, as long as he got paid first.

The client understood the risks, but would have a jeweler standing by to perform tests to ensure their permanency. The longer it took to get them back, the more likely they were to have problems. Finally, Fin turned the corner and headed toward the back of the van at a dead run, Theo right behind him, and right behind them, half of the police force of London.

“Hurry up Washington, fire it up! Let’s go!” Theo yelled, tossing a satchel into the chronohopper as he and Fin crawled in, helmeted and buckled. Washington was ready. He checked the sync on his wrist, adjusted a single dial on the dash and hit the accelerator. The Chronohopper vibrated, it’s appearance slowly turning transparent to onlookers, and then popping back into corporeal form at the other end.

Washington removed his helmet slowly, it always took a segment to adjust to temporal displacement. They were in the right place, but something was off. He turned to find the customer, tied to a chair, a gun to his head, Wolf Fitzer holding it.

“Toss the satchel, lads,” the big man sneered. This was the third heist in the last seven that Wolf had boosted. It was getting to be a habit. He swore under his breath, he was buying a second master chronograph with his next good haul. Position it somewhen safe, then a bad landing like this just meant a second hop to escape the problem.

1. Upvote the original post to enter the challenge.
2. Using the image as inspiration, write an original piece between 200 and 1000 words and add it in a comment on the original post. It can be anything, from a narrative piece, to poetry, as long as it refers to the image in some way.
3. All stories comments should be limited to pg13 material, please.
4. Vote for your favorite comment entry by upvoting the comment containing your favorite story!
5. The comment with the most upvotes wins 1/3 of the SBD payout on the original post! Plus, curation rewards for the comment! The more upvotes you get, the more you can make!
6. Please add a link to your story leading back to your blog, so readers can follow your other writing.
7. Feel free to comment (constructively and encouragingly) on other entries, if you'd like critique on yours, please note that at the top of your comment and I will add my two cents on your story!
8. Have fun! If this goes well, you can expect to find a new one on my blog in the near future. Happy writing!

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