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Annette Klein
Fictional Character
In High Places
POD: 1348
Type of Appearance: Direct POV
Nationality: United States (home timeline)
Religion: Judaism
Date of Birth: c. 2078
Occupation: Student, trader, slave
Parents: Jacob and Tiffany Klein

Annette Klein (b. ca. 2078) was a high school senior who worked with her parents for Crosstime Traffic. Although she was Jewish, the Klein family passed as Muslim traders in an alternate where the Great Black Deaths had killed over 80% of Europe's population, forcing the continent into a near-permanent medieval period. As a Muslim merchant's daughter, Annette caught the eye of a young man from the Kingdom of Versailles named Jacques. Jacques was ordered by Duke Raoul to shadow the Kleins and report back on their activities, although the Kleins were unaware of this. While the family preparing to return to their own world at a portal in Marseilles, Annette (known as Khadija al-Marsawi to the locals) was ambushed by Muslim slavers and both she and Jacques were sold into slavery in Madrid.

Both were purchased by an illegal underground Crosstime ring that kept slaves for entertainment, and were taken to another timeline that was technologically and socially primitive. To her horror, Annette was forced with other female slaves to weed huge garden patches. She befriended a slave named Emishtar, a native of the timeline.

As time passed, Annette was frustrated by a fellow slave, Birigida, who refused to do work, and routinely incurred the wrath of the guards. However, to her surprise, Annette learned that Birigida was in fact from the Home timeline, and had paid to briefly live as a slave as a sort of vacation. By shadowing Birigida, Annette was able to eventually escape back to the Madrid of the home timeline and alert authorities. With Annette's testimony, authorities in Spain unmasked the corruption of a faction of Crosstime Traffic employees. She took a year deferment from Ohio State University in order testify against the criminals and recover from her time as a slave. She also deepened her friendship with Jacques, whom Crosstime had deemed too risky to return to his own alternate.

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