“You’re a time traveler?”

“In a generic sense, yes.” The woman who had introduced herself as Yuxenia responded with a sigh of exasperation, “But everyone is. I suppose in your time period, you don’t call people automobile drivers, do you?”

“Well, not really, no.”

“Exactly!” Yuxenia held out her hands, as though framing his answer. “It’s just something we happen to do. But it’s not like it’s the job. That’s for the Amenders.”

“Amenders?” Loren was confused.

“Oh. Amenders. You ever feel like the dealing with consequences of an action vastly outweigh the cost of simply making it as though that action never existed?”

“Amending?” Loren blinked. “I thought that was simply called regret.”

“Yes, yes,” Yuxenia waved a hand, “But regret is for those who once had a choice. I guess it’s hard for you to understand, when having a choice is only an option in the moment.”

“Okay. Then…what is it you do?”

“Oh!” Yuxenia’s eyes lit up. “Right. So I’m an etymologist.”

Loren tried to remember what that meant. “You…study insects?”

“No, close, but that’s entomologist. Etymologists study words.” Yuxenia beamed a smile. “To make ‘the lengthy tale short,’ as your time period would say it: I’m here to confirm something and you would serve excellently as exhibit A. Now, does the word ‘mufflasin’ ring a bell?”

Loren stared blankly, trying to process everything. “What?”

Yuxenia’s eyes glimmered. “Stupendous. Absolutely tatalicious. Evidently not commonplace or even invented yet, if a randomly selected person doesn’t know. Next: glimranctious. Make any sense to you?”

Loren, unsure if Yuxenia was just plain mad or high on drugs, took a step back. “Ma’am, you’ll excuse me if I say—”

“*’Ma’am?’*” Yuxenia frowned, closing her eyes. “I thought that was from the 17th century. No, no, this is definitely early 21st century. Was ‘ma’am’ supposed to last this long? How dated. Curious, curious…well since you didn’t react to glimranctious, how about something I know is supposed to come out soon: contcode?”

“What is contcode even supposed to mean?” Loren was feeling angry by now. Yuxenia’s snide attitude with the questions were hardly friendly and she did not appreciate the feeling of belittlement. “Are you just making words up?”

“Ma’am, all words are made up.” Yuxenia smiled. “And to answer your question…hmm… well, it’s not like this will disrupt the space-time continuum. A contcode is like…oh dear.” She stroked her chin. “I’d say it’s like a living will? Either your generation or the next will realize that the transition from …was it called paper? Yes, paper to digital. Wow.”

She winked at Loren. “Digital will pass by soon but it’s a shame you won’t see it. Anyways, the late digital age recognized that humans have their continuance — I guess you would called that life? — digitized in their memory and not on paper. And it’s really complicated for the living to deal with the passwords and digital locks of their recently departed. So a company will soon create Contcodes. A key to a person’s continuance. In the event of their death, of course.”

Loren, unsure if she was even supposed to hear this, could not help but agree as the concept made sense. “Oh, well. Thank you for your participation, ma’am. It is time for me to go!” Yuxenia flashed a bright light at Loren and disappeared.

Loren, blinking at the light, looked back down at her coffee. She couldn’t believe she had just zoned out.

What had she been thinking about? Ah yes.