Runaway

What wonders would he see in Yclau? Robots? Holovisions? Visiphones? Microwave ovens?Bat is in trouble. Again.The only way out of the trap this time is to take a leap into the future, into a world of wonders that his mind can scarcely grasp.But trouble awaits Bat at the border to his refuge. How he handles that trouble will determine his own future . . . and the future of what he is leaving behind.This retrofuture science fiction short story can be read on its own or as a side story in Waterman, an award-winning speculative fiction series set in an alternative version of the Chesapeake Bay region during the 1910s and during the future as it was envisioned in the 1960s.The Waterman series is part of Turn-of-the-Century Toughs, a cycle of alternate history series (The Eternal Dungeon, Dungeon Guards, Michael's House, Life Prison, Waterman, and Dark Light) about adults and youths on the margins of society, and the people who love them. Set in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as well as in a future that never existed, the novels and stories take place in an alternative version of America that was settled by inhabitants of the Old World in ancient times. As a result, the New World retains certain classical and medieval customs.