Self-Review – Recruitment Time

It is a Good Day to Look at Recruitment Time

I do not love the title of Recruitment Time. Maybe I will change it. But right now, I truly do not know.

I wrote this story during the second quarter of 2024.

Background

I liked Sharon Ensley, Hudson LeDuque, and Rachel Shapiro so much that I wanted to bring them all back. In particular, I wanted to connect Sharon and Hudson directly to Rachel.

Plot

On what should have been a routine time travel mission, Sharon Ensley ends up diverted to 2001 New Jersey. As she dodges falling debris and body parts, she realizes the scene is somewhat familiar. But it does not feel perfectly correct.

Characters

The characters are Sharon Ensley, Hudson LeDuque, Rachel Shapiro, Victoria Chilton, Pen Schulman, Kevin O’Connor, Arthur Iannucci, Preston Kelly, and Lenny Antonelli. Many of these are characters from And the Walls Came Tumbling Down Again.

Memorable Quotes

Debris rained all around her. Shoes. A teapot. A crate for an animal that she hoped was empty. A small piece of luggage in an ultra-feminine shade of pink nearly hit her on the head.

“That’s, that’s a train case,” she mumbled. Why did I remember that, of all things? She smacked herself in the ear to engage a tiny, implanted phone that was much more sophisticated technology than anyone of that era had ever seen. But there was no sense in trying to hide the implanted phone. If anyone was still alive, they were likely to be in terrible shock and incapable of registering what they were seeing.
“Emergency! Emergency services!”

“This is Atlantic City nine-one-one dispatch, Carol Ann speaking. What is the nature of the emergency, and where are you?”

“It’s er,…” Think, Sharon, think! “A plane crash. It’s, it’s burning, it’s horrible.”

“Do not endanger yourself,” said the dispatch operator. “Where are you?”

“It’s, it’s, God, it’s awful.” And I have no idea where or when I am. But I can use my obvious trauma for cover.

“Ma’am where are you?” the dispatcher repeated.

“It’s, it’s swampy here. There aren’t any lights.”

“The pine barrens?”

Sure, let’s go with that. “Yeah, I think so. I’m scared.” And that’s not an act.

Genre and Overall Mood

The genre is science fiction time travel. After a rough, concerning start, the story mainly proceeds neutrally/a little positively.

Rating for Recruitment Time

The story has a T rating. The start in particular—the inciting incident, as it were—is nasty.

Takeaways from Recruitment Time

While the story does run out of gas at the very end, I think it otherwise flows fairly well. Its main purpose is to link Sharon Ensley with the …Walls…cast. Which is something that I think works.

Furthermore, we get a few more clues about LeDuque, or at least about his tech. So, can he, truly, go to the future? At this point in time, even I am not so sure either way.

While engineer Kevin O’Connor and mathematician Arthur Iannucci say he should not be able to, the team realizes there are a few ways LeDuque could, or at least he could fake it really well.

Which just might be enough to be convincing.

Want More of my Short Stories and Novellas?

If this story resonates with you, then I hope you will check out some of my other blog posts about my shorter works. Especially the ones about how time travel is wacky, counterintuitive, and could endanger us all.

And finally, for a complete list of my shorter works, please be sure to check out the Hub Page—Short Stories.