Okay, so every day he and his wife made about 50 iron pieces together. They both worked 6 days a week, that meant they would have made 300 irons in a week.. The Inn they were staying at cost 15 iron pieces a day, so then 105 irons were just used for sheltering. Budgeting in for food cost, that was another 50-ish iron a week. Taking out travel expenses to get around the city total about 10 irons. Which left… 135 irons saved a week. Not a great amount. They already had 50 silver, 94 bronze, and 230 iron saved away. The tickets for the boat costed 10 gold pieces each. Doing the conversions…

Jesus Christ! It would take them a little over three years to save up at their current rate.

Miles’s shoulders slouched. He really thought he found a breakthrough in their situation. But as it turns out, even in a weird, twisted amalgamation of a universe, cash still ran the world.

Damn. Guess that meant he needed to look for a higher paying job. He needed a lot of cash and he needed it quickly. Miles would be damned if he let his first child be born here.

Well, that is if they decided to even keep the fetus in the first place...

They hadn’t really talked about it since that night. Two- Three days have passed?  As much as Miles wanted to bring it up the next morning, Gwen had gotten up early and left out for work before Miles’s fuzzled brain could even wake up enough to string two thoughts together. When Miles returned to the inn later that afternoon, both were too tired to even want to start that heavy conversation. It’s just… The timing never felt right.

Miles hoped Gwen didn’t feel like he was ignoring her. In reality, she was never far from his thoughts. With everything going on, they just had so little free time to spend with each other. These days their check-ins were brief and mostly spent on planning ways to get back to their home universe.

But at the end of the day, they needed to have this talk. This decision could alter how they planned their way out, not to mention their future. It was frustrating to be stuck in such an ambiguous position, but it’s not like Miles was doing anything to solve it. He hadn’t even figured out his own feelings about this potential baby. If they were back on earth-1675, he’d been ecstatic. But here?

The stress felt crushing.

“Morales! Get your head out of the clouds and hand your box over!” A coworker ordered

“Huh? Right!” Miles passed his crate up to his coworker on a carriage before turning back to the dock to grab another. Of all the jobs kid Miles had imagined himself working in the future, a dockworker was far from anything he had ever imagined.

Sweat pooled on Miles’s brow. Despite what his coworkers may think, it wasn’t the labor of this job making  him drench his clothes in sweat. These boxes practically weighed nothing to him. It was the damn sun. He swore it seemed to burn brighter in this weird amalgamation of a universe. With the sky being clear of clouds, it felt like a laser was staring him down.

The dock Miles worked at looked something straight out of historical film. History was never Miles’s strong suit but he figured this city was model off of 19th century America. Back before any of the world wars had happened. Though a much more diverse crowd roamed the streets here. While most of the people here were dressed in period correct clothes, Miles would spot people of vastly different time periods roaming the streets. Just the other day Gwen saw an advertisement for a fight between a roman soldier and an Aztec warrior.

Miles and Gwen knew this universe was going to be weird going in. This universe was a tangled knot in the web of fate. But this? Neither Gwen nor he had ever seen anything like this before.

Knots were never a good sign. Not only did they stop web readers from reading or making predictions, they  were often a sign of a distortion in the fabric of reality. These were the most dangerous types of mission. Only the most senior spider-totems were offered these assignments. Gwen and he had accepted this mission practically blind to the danger of this world. They had two objectives, find the cause and solve the problem, if possible.

None of that mattered to Miles anymore. His only goal was getting him and his wife out of this damn universe.

Despite the randomness of this universe, there were still trends to be found. Through the many talks Miles had with the people here he found that most of the societies dotting this earth came before the industrial revolution. Gwen and he had only lucked out landing in a city where they could at least keep their tech charged. There were only two places on this earth where modern technology could be found. If Miles could get his hands on a modern lab, he could figure out why their watches stopped working and find them a way home.

Their biggest roadblock was the fact it cost an arm and a leg to get to the nearest modern society, Kiester. Not an impossible block, but a big one indeed.

As he was about to grab another large crate from the pile building on the dock a deep, gravelly voice called, “Hey, Morales.”

Miles stopped and turned. His boss was sitting on one of the dock’s posts, waving him over. He was an older fellow. While his movements were slow and shaky, his eyes had this undeniable sharpness. It was hard to pull anything over him. A white beard covered the entirety of his jaw. And just like the way he dressed, his beard was perfectly manicured and fashioned. He was a man of means. It was easy to see. Though the old calluses on his hands hinted that might not always have been true.

“Griffiths, you called,” Miles answered as he approached.

“Sit. If you keep working yourself out like that, you’re going to hurt yourself son. Give those arms a rest,” he ordered

Had he really been going that long? Looking back, Miles couldn’t remember the last time he had taken a break. That made him break out into a worse sweat. Normal. That’s what he was supposed to be pretending to be. A normal powerless human. And normal powerless people don’t effortlessly carry heavy crates for hours on end…

Miles sat down in the shade of the ship as he whisked away the sweat on his brow. In the distance, he could hear the call of a ship’s horn. He turned to the sound. A metal sailboat was coming to port. That was a rare sight. Probably from Kiester he guessed.

“How’s the Mrs?” Griffiths asked.

“Good. She’s good.”

“Glad to hear. It’s nice to see couples of your age keeping strong. Though I am surprised you two don’t have any little ones running around already.”

A nervous chuckle escaped Miles’s throat. They weren’t that old. 27 and 28 respectively. But maybe times were different back then. “One day maybe... I’d rather be back with my family before Gwen and I start to build our own.”

“Ahh, I see. If you don’t mind, where is family?”

Should he be honest? Miles doubted NYC existed here. Even if it did, it wasn’t in the way he knew his home city. Instead, Miles said the first place that came to mind. “Kiester”

“Well, aren’t you a long way from home.” Griffiths laughed, a deep bellyful laugh.

“Yeah, I’ve always had a bit of an adventurous spirit. Wouldn’t have met my wife without it,” Miles joined in. In a more somber voice, Miles continued, “But now, I think I am ready to settle down. I just need to get the finances together.”

Griffiths hummed. He was thinking. Miles could see it in his eyes. “It cost a lot to get a ride to Kiester. Do you have the pieces you need to cover that kind of cost?” Miles could only look away and shake his head. “I’m sure you know this kind of work isn’t going to get you home any time soon, but what if I told you there was another way to make some silver pieces real quickly.”

Miles looked back to Griffith with a careful eye. “How so?”