Slip in Time

Time travel has been in the family tree for over a century. Each generation getting closer to the point of discovery. Alara Mallett stared back at the physicists working on her latest invention. Phases one and two work. Why the hell doesn’t Phase Three kick in? It gets to a point and then the whole field shuts down. She glanced at her smartwatch, “Hurry up and finish it. I want to go home tonight,” she grumped at one guy looking confused.

“But I have tried everything you said to do.”

“Well, change the polarity,” she stepped closer to the machine, “Have I got to do everything myself?”

“But—”

Taking a big step forward she glared back at him, “Do it!”

With a shaky hand, he switched the circuit. The moment the two connections met the room filled with a bright white light and a loud boom. Alara threw her hands over her ears as she hit the floor. Her head throbbed as she came around. What the hell happened? Everything was dark and something was digging into her ribs. Reaching under her lab coat she discovered the floor was not made of vinyl but sticks and grass. What the hell? Her heart skipped a beat as she tried to focus her eyes in the darkness. 

The smartwatch on her wrist was continuously beeping with a message, that it couldn’t upload her data to the server. Pressing the try again later button, she lay still trying to regain her breath. After a few deep breaths, she became more aware of her body. Every muscle ached as she tried to sit up. As she became more coherent and her hearing returned, she started to notice things. Birds were chirping nearby. A fern leaf brushing against her face irritated her skin. Her heart started racing as her eyes scanned her surroundings. Am I in a forest? How did I get here? I was in the lab, working on the phase transporter and that idiot was stuffing around. She sat silent searching her mind but couldn’t remember anything after that. Did I die and they dumped me in the forest? Don’t be stupid, who would do that?

As her eyes adjusted to the night, she looked for any sign of life. No lights, or traffic sounds. Just how far out into the wilderness did they dump me?  A distant rumble came from above. Is that a plane? A line of propeller-driven World War Two bombers came over the horizon. Flying low they flew overhead and kept going. Bombers? She shook her head, blinking several times. I must be dreaming.

Shortly after the planes disappeared behind the tree line a series of distant explosions rang out before the planes' engines grew loader again. Ducking into the dense undergrowth her gaze tracked the planes as they disappeared over the horizon once more. I don’t know where I am but I have to get out of here.

“My phone. Oh,” her heart sank as she remembered phones weren’t allowed in the lab. It’s in my handbag on my desk. Surely someone will come looking for me when they discover I’m missing.

I have to find someone with a phone. The planes came from that direction and bombed over there. I don’t want to be in the bombing range, I’ll head back towards the planes. 

***

Hours of stumbling through the undergrowth in the darkness revealed very little except for a few scratches on her body. Stopping at a creek, she bent over scooping the cold water up in her hands. Partway through sipping the sound of men talking got louder. Someone is coming. Her excitement grew briefly. What are they saying? I don’t recognise that language. Ducking down in the shadows she trained her attention to their voices. Some European language? German?

They are getting closer. It was only now she looked down and realised her white lab coat stood out like a beacon in the dark woods. Ripping off the coat, she buried it in the foliage. Hiding motionless amongst a couple of fallen trees she waited for the men to pass. She put all her focus on slowing her heavy breathing to avoid being heard. The footsteps were close, she closed her eyes and held her breath as the strangers passed her by.

Relieved to have not been seen when the men went by, she continued to follow them at a safe distance. The sun's first light peaked over the hills, making it easier to navigate the bush but harder to stay hidden. A sharp beeping sound rang out from her wrist making her duck for cover. Her fingers rushed to turn off the smartwatch warning her she still couldn’t access the server. But her secret was out, two soldiers silently rose from the fernery beside her with rifles drawn. She froze as a cold sweat broke out over her body. Cautiously she raised her hands murmuring, “Don’t Shoot.” One soldier stepped forward, wrapping his hand around her mouth as he slowly pulled her back into the undergrowth.

“You speak English?” He whispered.

She nodded. He spoke English but had an American accent. Her eyes darted over his uniform. Have I fallen into a War documentary? Her eyes widened as she stared back at the man. Time travel! Have I gone back in time? Her thoughts were distracted by distant gunfire and yelling. What the hell is going on?

After a while other soldiers returned to the group all looking back at her and mumbling among themselves. The leader pointed his rifle at her, “You don’t look like anyone local. Who are you?”

“Alara Mallett. Where am I?”

He leaned in closer staring at her face, “You don’t know where you are?”

“No, one minute I was in Mulhouse when the—” she paused as she ran through her thoughts, “I woke up here.”

“Mulhouse? Never heard of it. What country are you from?”

“European Union.”

He poked the rifle into her chest with a hard thump, “Are you trying to be smart with me?” The tone of his voice got rougher with each question.

A lump grew in her throat, she held up her shaking hands and cowered away, “No.”

“What country? German, French or Switzerland?” He demanded.

No one has called them that in decades. I have gone back in time. She rapidly searched her mind. Where was Mulhouse?  “France!” She took a deep breath, “Mulhouse is near the Swizz border.”

“Well, we are near the border and there is nothing for miles.”

Another soldier stepped forward, “Why are we stuffing around here? Take her back to the base.”

“Yeah,” the leader grunted, “Get up, you’re coming with us.” He grabbed her arm and dragged her to her feet.

***

The steel door slammed behind her as she stumbled into the small room. Taking a seat next to a small timber table, the concrete walls surrounded her. I have a bathroom bigger than this place. A single horsehair mattress lay on the floor in the corner lit with a single light bulb overhead. She reached for her smartwatch but it was gone. Oh well, it will be no use to them. They haven’t built the satellites for it to talk to yet.

Staring back at the table. I have accidentally sent myself to World War Two. Why not somewhere more exciting? What have I done? She dropped her face into her hands sobbing. Tears rolled down her cheeks as her thoughts kept going over her last minutes in the lab. It doesn’t make sense. Keys rattled outside the door. They are back. She jumped to her feet, backing up to the wall. A lump developed in her chest as sweat broke out on her brow.

A man in an old-style tailored suit and a military officer entered. The look on their faces was not one of a pleasant visit. They didn’t introduce themselves but the questions were never-ending. She kept the answers generic as she knew what happened to people in mental institutions during this time.

Taking a deep breath, “I told you; I work at the European Interstellar space travel research lab at Mulhouse,” she replied, slumping her shoulders. Her body was drained of energy and she hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours. “I’m an Astrophysicist.” Surely you have heard of them.

The man in the suit seemed to understand what she was saying. He leaned towards the soldier and whispered in his ear. Looking back at her, their stern expression said nothing as they left the room. The keys rattled once more as the locks clicked shut.

Collapsing back into the chair, her head dropped to the table. Taking deep breaths, she looked back at the stained mattress. I need sleep.

***

The door clanged open and footsteps filled the room. Jolted from her sleep, she didn’t have time to react when two men grabbed her arms pulling her to her feet and shuffled her down the hall. “Where are you taking me?” She mumbled.

“Washington.”

Washington! “America?” Her pulse raced as she was shoved around like a sack of potatoes being dragged down a long hall. A door opened to a bright light, making her wince. Opening her eyes she found herself at an airstrip with old planes dotted around. The men kept walking her toward an old cargo plane on the runway with engines running.  “I’m not going in that. It’s old.”

“It was built last year and it’s the fastest way to travel or I can put you on a ship for three months.”

Shuffling on board past a variety of cargo, the soldier pointed to a bench seat, “Sit.”

***

The flight was long and rough, stepping onto the tarmac her legs felt like jelly. A group of suits met her inside the hangar and escorted her to the meeting room for more interrogations. Her body was numb and the last few days started to take on a fantasy air. After a short time, she was placed in a house on the base resembling a home but she wasn’t allowed to go anywhere. The soldier outside her door made sure of that. She sat at her dining table staring out the window at all the other houses lining the street, each one exactly the same. Timber-clad walls, all painted in an unearthly vile green. Her heart sank as she accepted her new reality. I’m never going to get back home. I need to document everything I know before I forget it.

Some visitors were friendlier than others. The scientists were interested in her research and dropped by regularly. Alara looked over a map of Europe, so much was not around back then. She had not moved from the location of the lab in her time travel. The forest turned out to be the lab's location but the suburb hadn’t been built yet. I somehow managed to create time travel but couldn’t control the destination. Luckily, I didn’t go back to the time of dinosaurs or the ice age.

She cooperated with the local science community to stay safe. Being in the 1940’s, no one had heard of most of the items she used to work with so she had to dumb it down to basic maths. Most of what she knew she kept to herself not wanting to corrupt the scientific timeline too much. Computers were bigger than her bedroom and knew less than her cat.

Over time she kept writing in her journals and was given an off-base army house. Upon leaving the base, the government officials gave her a new identity and back story to tell the real world. Who would believe she created a time machine from the second millennium? Meeting up with a local gentleman, she settled into spending the rest of her life as a wife and mother while writing textbooks on time travel and other scientific theories. These books would remain hidden in her attic until her passing, when they would be willed to her distant cousin Ronald Mallett who worked in the science community.

The End