It took several days to clean up the mess of the last Challenger.

  I took this opportunity to talk to several of the Hunters. I commiserated with Hunters who had failed to kill the Challenger. I had a longer talk with Harrington about no longer trying to mask his blade presence when he was using shadow magic. I pointed out the apparent contradiction in this. He confirmed my suspicion that he was unhappy about being forced to smear grease and other substances on the blade to hide it. It went against his nature of being a bit of a neat freak.

  I had to have a longer conversation with Rigger. Due to his recent changes, it was more one-sided, but he got the message—no eating of dead bodies outside of his lair. Like Rodriguez's, I noticed that his attitude and approach to things were becoming distinctly less human. Both of the Hunters were now becoming more subsumed by their monstrous natures.

  I was a bit worried that I would need to rein them in more, reducing their ability to travel beyond my walls. I thought long and hard about it, but decided not to do anything right now, since they always follow my rules on their excursions.

  I added the gold wedding ring left behind by the Challenger to my new pile of jewellery to be sold ultimately. I didn't want to, but he wasn't a successful Challenger, so I wasn't going to keep it. This made me feel a little bad, but I pushed through it, knowing I needed the resources in the long run. If you had been successful, it would have been added to the others safely stored away with my gold and silver.

  I occupied my usual position atop the spatial bubble, watching the world pass by. This was where I remained as the days passed and July arrived. The roads bordering my forest were busy with traffic. The farmer across the river was tending his crops. The local wildlife was doing its thing. Everything was happening as it should, with no signs of any more visitors.

  Cuba was now fully integrated as the 48th state in the Union. There were no signs of any more on the horizon.

  Internationally, I noticed a small story in the Portland Times that I knew would herald more to come. The Cunard Line's shipowners were outfitting their entire fleet with wireless radio sets. Many navies had already begun large-scale adoption of them, and production costs had dropped to the point that non-military ships could afford to install them. The RMS Lucania was the first ship to do this.

  The bright sunny days passed slowly, but ultimately August arrived. Only Herbert came to the gates with aid deliveries of newspapers and gossip. Crossway was having a second rail line installed to make the one connecting them to Cascadia a dual line, rather than the single line they had now.

  Both nationally and internationally, very little happens that interests me. Things were quiet on the visitor front with no one arriving. Neither the Way of Athamos nor the Daughters of Medusa representatives appear. I am not concerned by this as they are now extremely busy with their own plots and agendas. I actually immensely enjoy the quiet time, free from anyone bothering me. It gives me time to think.

  The path from the gates, the road needed to be cleared again as the forest sought to reclaim it. The Hunters dealt with that, and I watched what I could see through the trees during the night. The sands of time continued to flow, and August gave way to September.

  I was settling into thinking that Autumn would pass just as quietly, and then I went to get ready for winter. The world had other ideas, I'm afraid. Thankfully, the storm avoided me in my little corner of the country.

  On 8th September, the US President Jonathan Mayfair was assassinated in Washington, DC. He was gunned down coming out of the theatre with the Speaker of the House, another Democrat. The gunman was an American anarchist named Joseph Heinz. Mayfair's security team killed him, but seven other people were injured in the resulting gunbattle.

  Joseph Heinz sent a letter to The Washington Post that morning, which arrived the next day, claiming that he was an anarchist and that he was striking a blow for the liberty of the people of the United States of America.

  The Vice President, Harold McGregor (no relation to my Hunter), was sworn in as the new President that day. In a fiery speech to Congress the next day, the new President decried Joseph Heinz as a socialist and anarchist. He announced sweeping action against several prominent unions and socialist groups within the nation, ordering the marshals to investigate them for what he deemed "anti-American" activities.

  The Republican members of Congress and the Senate decried his actions and opposed them wherever they could, but many were not in Washington, allowing the new President to move quickly. Many Democratic governors openly supported the President, unleashing the state police and marshals onto numerous socialist unions in their states.

  This sparked massive civil unrest across many states. Violent protests were the norm for the first few weeks, as the government's heavy-handed crackdown on unions nationwide met with force. Dozens died in clashes in Democrat run states. Republican ones saw more peaceful protests, but anti-union activists were causing trouble there as well.

  "You can only push people so far before they push back."

  I said to myself as I continued to read the reports coming in. My best source of information about what's happening, of course, was not the Crossway Chronicle but the Portland Times. The American paper was far too biased in favour of the Democratic Party and was staunchly anti-Unionist.

  My contacts with the Daughters and the Way came to visit me together. They were both clearly worried about what was happening, and I cautioned them to do everything they could to put out the fires. I told them that paying their staff well and providing good working conditions would help them in the long run. Abusing their workforce would only lead to problems like we are seeing now.

  Capitalism was good, and it would generate significant wealth for them in the long run. I explained to them that paying their staff well would benefit them in the long run. This would mean the workforce would spend more of their wages, driving the economy forward. It made me realise that most people did understand the simple basic economic principle. But then I remembered what little I could of the United States on my timeline and how it been consumed by the demand for profit above all consequence.

  During this period, I knew it as the Gilded Age and suspected it would mark its end.

  Towards the end of the month, the Republicans finally got their act together and, with several moderate Democrats, pushed back enough to rein in the President's excess. The federal clampdown ended, but the state-level clampdown continued in many states. Any fool can see this would lead to the radicalisation of more of the socialist movement. I wondered what this would bring to America.

  Things quietened down in October. I watched everything from afar, factoring in what I was learning into my plans. The divide between the Democratic and Republican parties has grown more pronounced, with both sides accusing the other of overreacting or not reacting enough. The language was far more aggressive than before. Unfortunately for the Republicans, the split inside the party itself has become more pronounced between the liberal wing and the socialist wing.

  Over 200 people died in the troubles in September. Hundreds more were arrested but were now being released. There were still some high-profile cases being argued in court.

  Autumn was here in full force, and winter would soon arrive. My Hunters and I were preparing for the long cutoff period.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  November began, and I noticed the snow line on the mountains was shifting. That meant a long, hard winter was coming for us. I also thought the world had quietened down after the madness of September, but the year still had a bit more chaos left in it.

  Britain announced plans to build a canal across Panama to link the Caribbean to the Pacific. The United States government protested the construction plans, claiming that the Americans were within its sphere of influence. The British ignored them. The new President did not take it well and sought to show strength by deploying one of his naval squadrons off Jamaica's coast. The arrival of the British Caribbean Squadron quickly convinced Washington that a conflict with Britain would be ill-advised. Britain was supported in this by most of the world's major powers, which meant any dispute would be disastrous for the United States. The other nations saw Britain's construction of this canal as a significant benefit to their economies. Britain had maintained a policy of strict neutrality among the various power blocs worldwide. Both the German and French leaders understood that a neutral Britain was the best outcome for them, as the Empire taking sides would be disastrous for the other.

  In December, President Harold McGregor delivered a speech to the House of Representatives calling for the removal of nearly all regulations and restrictions on industry and commerce. He claimed this was the vision of the Founding Fathers.

  The speech went down as you would expect on one side of the aisle. The Democratic side largely supported his calls. The public opinion on the speech was harder to gauge.

  The snow coming hard off the mountains halted any attempt to track the national reactions.

  There were no fireworks for 1902.

  A heavy blizzard sat on the area, keeping everything locked down. Heavy snowfall and blizzards continue to sweep off the mountains, halting traffic along the road. Occasionally, I made out the smokestacks of trains passing along the rails, but clouds often obscured them.

  Harrington could hardly get out and about during this time, and little research was done on the cult items I had gathered.

  This continued until the start of March, when I finally made contact with the world again. Herbert arrived with a massive delivery of papers dating back several months, and I retired to the church to read them.

  I had to backtrack to December the previous year, as I was cut off in the middle of the month. Reactions to President McGregor's speech ultimately favoured him, but many unions across the nation condemned him. In January, he had put forward a bill to remove most of the limitations upon companies, but a single vote in Congress beat it. Several moderate Democrats, realising the disaster this would be, decided to stand against the President.

  I shifted to the papers covering January 1902.

  Only two things caught my interest outside of the internal political squabbling in America. The first was the article on the Cape Town-Cairo railway. The Boer War had not slowed the construction in South Africa. The British military had needed the railway and, in fact, accelerated its expansion along the tip of the continent. The railhead had reached German-held territory in Africa, and local authorities were assisting the British in their ongoing construction. The other end of the rail line from Cairo was moving steadily south, and it was expected that the two lines would link within two years, completing the first line.

  The second was the Japanese buying additional ships from the British. The Japanese naval industry has expanded over the last 20 years, but it remains far behind European powers. To help compensate for the lack of numbers, the Japanese were presented with the expansion of both the Russian and German fleets in the Pacific; they bought British hulls.

  In February, the first conference of the International Woman Suffrage Alliance took place in Washington, D.C. Unfortunately, the American Christian Woman's Temperance and Morality League hijacked the event to push further their agenda of what they saw as the correct way the country should be run. They were decried by many of the international delegates, claiming that they were openly interfering with the push for women's suffrage.

  This brings me to March, and little is happening, either nationally or internationally, in the reports that interest me. It was only a few days after I got the papers that Elenor made an appearance at my gates.

  "I greet you, Keeper." She smiled brightly at me, even though she was bundled up against the weather.

  This spring was finally starting to push back the snow, but it was slow going. The first green shoots were trying to force their way through, and there was a lot of mud now around as the snow melted.

  "I greet you, Elenor. It is a rather odd time of the year for you to make an appearance, isn't it?"

  "I agree, Keeper. It has been one of the harshest winters for all involved. But my sisters have gained a victory that we could not withhold from you." She was positively vibrating with excitement.

  "Which is?"

  I knew it must mean something significant to pull out of her warm home and travel all the way here, even with winter retreating.

  "The inventor Thomas Edison has held a monopoly over 35mm movie film technology. He has been most egregious in restricting access to all those he deemed undesirable. We have been fighting a legal case against him, and we have just had a circuit court decide that his monopoly was illegal and has been officially ended!" She was grinning now, ear to ear.

  "That is excellent news! Most excellent news!"

  And it was. This meant that 35mm film would be used to produce motion pictures. The restrictions he imposed on access to the technology have now been lifted, allowing anyone to use it. This meant that the motion picture industry was now about to go into high gear. I had been wondering why it had not already started to grow, but this information explains so much to me.

  "We agree. My sisters are now starting to focus on California. We have already started to whisper in the ears of many the possibility of setting up a film studio in Los Angeles due to the weather and climate being most agreeable."

  It seemed her sisters were finally grasping the extent of the power they could wield through media such as film. They had been hesitant at first, but quickly warmed to the idea when they discovered how much profit they could make. I pointed out to them that it was not just the studios that should influence, but the actual cinemas themselves. Controlling, or at least having a foothold in, the entire supply chain from filming to viewing would greatly benefit them. I learned they had built several small viewing spaces on the East Coast as an experiment, and they have proven exceptionally popular. This had convinced them of my knowledge of the future, and they were becoming much more invested in developing this nascent industry.

  "The next 10 years will see the creation of the film industry in California expect."

  "My sisters agree. We are organising our financial resources to support any new companies that wish to set up in California. As you predicted, it is a long-term investment for us, but we expect dividends to start to be paid within 10 to 15 years, far outpacing our initial investment."

  I found it amusing to hear and speak in a voice more like a banker than the social butterfly she pretended to be. It was time for me to give her the next piece of information so they would be ready for what came next.

  "The first films will be silent."

  She became much more focused and now listened to what I was saying.

  "Eventually, there will be a shift in technology allowing the recording of sound, which will mark a massive change in the industry. Many of the silent stars would not survive the transition to what would become known as the "talkies". Be ready for when the change comes."

  "When will the change happen?" Eleanor asked. This is essential information, knowing that such a fundamental shift was coming; her sisters could position themselves to profit from it.

  "If things continue to develop as I foresee, you're looking at a shift somewhere in the 1920s. By the 1930s, there will be no more silent films."

  I can see her internalising the information and nodding slightly as she considers the dates and what her sisters would need to do. I decided to perform a bit of a social experiment.

  "The film industry will become dominated by the studio system. This entails…."

  I went on to explain the studio system to her and how it became Hollywood's dominant force for many decades. I told her about the open presentation of morality and ethics by the Hollywood elite, but behind closed doors, the debauchery and corruption ran wild. I told her of the abuse of both male and female actors by studio heads and producers. This included physical and sexual abuse, all in the pursuit of power and wealth.

  She nodded along as I spoke, and I could see the shift in her attitude when I explained the corruption and abuse. It seems that the debauchery did not bother her, and she seemed even slightly excited by it. But the open abuse of the young seems to upset her.

  "I will take your words to my sisters. For those who willingly indulge in such things, we care not. But those who are forced into such activities, we will not allow them to suffer."

  The Daughters of Medusa had a bit of a twisted sense of morality, like me. If you willingly walk through the door and partake in such events, then so be it, but if you are forced or manipulated into it, they did not take it well. For some time, I wondered about this strange contradiction with the group of women who openly used seduction and sexual manipulation to gain what they needed. But then I remembered the story of Medusa and how she became the gorgon that she was misremembered as.

  Poseidon and Athena were a real pair of dicks.