
"Thanks." Justin went upstairs to the apartment. It was small and bare, with furniture that had seen better decades. The TV wasn't new. The stereo was so old, it didn't play CDs, only records and cassettes. Well, his computer could manage CDs. He accepted a key to the apartment and another for the security gates, then unpacked. He couldn't do everything he wanted till he got a phone, but he was here.
* * *He used a pay phone to call a cab, and rode over to a used car lot. He couldn't do everything he wanted without wheels, either. He had no trouble proving he was himself; he'd done some computer forgery before he left to make his driver's license expire in 2003, as it really did. His number hadn't changed.
Security holograms that would have given a home machine trouble here-and-now were a piece of cake to graphics programs from 2018.
His younger self didn't know he'd just bought a new old car: a gray early- 90s Toyota much like the one he was already driving.
"Insurance is mandatory," the salesman said. "I can sell you a policy…" Justin let him do it, to his barely concealed delight. It was, no doubt, highway robbery, especially since Justin was nominally only twenty-one. He'd dressed for the age he affected, in T-shirt and jeans. To him, though, no 1999 prices seemed expensive. He paid cash and took the car.
Getting a bank account wasn't hard, either. He chose a bank his younger self didn't use. Research paid off: he deposited only $9,000. Ten grand or more in cash and the bank would have reported the transaction to the government. He didn't want that kind of notice. He wanted no notice at all. The assistant manager handed him a book of temporary checks. "Good to have your business, Mr. Kloster. The personalized ones will be ready in about a week."
"Okay." Justin went off to buy groceries.
