It’s not enough... the white walls that smell like bleach, the drone of the machines around me.
The sweet swoosh of air that goes in and out
The touch, the touch is like the sweetest elixir.
The feel of skin on mine.
The warm brush of the nurse’s arm as she straightens my blankets and checks the numerous colored cables that keep me alive.
The world around me is a parade of white and teal, hands and machines. Faces are blurry at best, and few and far between as I lapse in and out of my two different nightmares.
Thankfully, I feel no physical pain.... it is the emotional pain of the memories that continuously wrack my soul.
I have a name, yet I have not heard it pass the lips of those who care for me. To them I am Jane... they know nothing of me, or how I came to be in my present condition. In muted whispers they have contemplated my life just as they would the latest episode of a tawdry soap opera. Within the span of a week I was a University student, a fed up housewife found wandering the streets in nothing but my housecoat, and my personal favorite, a hooker left for dead with a box full of contraband illusion discs by my side. They should concentrate more on getting me out of this hell rather than creating new ones for me. I have experienced most of them for myself. I am Lt. Commander Elizabeth Finn and I am a time traveller...
Last week began as just an ordinary day, I woke up and travelled to St. Petersburg, Russia.... to some that may seem a bit out of the ordinary, but for me it was just standard operating procedures at Unit 76. I have been doing this for the past four years, my first journey taking me to the year 1776 to document the life of our first president, and to retrieve artifacts from that time. Artifacts, and a DNA sample of George Washington. In 2048 Unit 76 was created by the Scientific Senate and the President to began a breakthrough type of historical research by collecting DNA to clone and bring to life the great leaders and historical figures of our past generations to be interviewed and to be educated by. The years following the great quake in California had shown our country and the world the need for knowledge and the need for strong historical roots. For ten years geneticists, engineers, anthropologists, archeologists and one man, Thomas Matthews, worked in secrecy in a secluded facility nestled in the Olympic mountains; not far from where they discovered a sunken alien space vessel in the early 1980s. In 2038 Thomas Matthews discovered a small device on the vessel while performing a routine inspection for the Science Senate. This device when touched at it’s center could send someone to the exact time and place that the person was thinking of. Matthews took this device and instead of using it for his own or others profit, brought it to the Scientific Senate; the branch of our new government that oversaw space exploration, medical research. They were the keepers of the keys of every scientific government secret. Lucien Darnoff, then Senior Senator of Scientific development saw it as a valuable tool and key not only to our future, but our past. We are taught history so we would not make the mistakes of our past, it is a noble thought.... yet we keep on repeating our mistakes, at least our country’s leaders have. There have been no more Washington’s, Lincoln’s, JFK and RFK’s... there has been no one that has made an impact on our world in a positive way since Martin Luther King, Plato, DaVinci, Mozart... No John, Paul, George or Ringo.... with all the technology and toys our society has developed we have been starving for a cultural Renaissance. Our lives have become cold and sanitary. Children are no longer conceived ‘naturally’, but by in-vitro and you have to have a permit. Fast food, tobacco, alcohol and street drugs are a thing of the past. People no longer seek destroy their bodies, but to perfect them healthily along with their minds. The Quake of 2017 found two thirds of California real estate, the country’s richest farm lands, in the ocean, forcing us to re-evaluate our priorities because of the food shortage that followed. The once grey and uninhabitable moon that circled our planet is now the most fertile planet in our solar system thanks to our Scientific Senate and Lucien Darnoff. The Scientific Senate and it’s vast staff of the most brilliant minds of the 21st Century have saved the country and the world twice over thanks to their efforts. The vast war scarred deserts of Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran are now the greener than the Brazilian rain forests. It’s not all utopian fantasy... men and women are now getting their highs by ‘tuning’ their brains into illusion discs, a practice known to turn one’s brain to jelly. The United States and India are embroiled in a technological ‘Cold War’.... I guess we reap what we sow. Those who don’t have mathematical or scientific aptitude are pretty much branded outcasts, they are the forgotten. Our children have become creatively constipated. We no longer have music or art in our schools... music of the past is listened to, bands of the future pretty much play cover songs of the bands of the early 21st century. Creativity has become considered a frivolous past time, a ‘chore’ given to those who are now considered servant class society. Why is it that a world that prides itself on ‘breeding’ the most brilliant children in the world cannot see that art and music are part of that brilliance and should be celebrated?
I digress. I can say that though. I was blessed with great scientific aptitude... at the age of three I was taking apart and rebuilding the family computer. I am, however, a 20th Century junkie.... I love the music of the 20th century, I love to paint, write poetry, I study the works of Dali and Muddy Waters, art and the blues., My parents often found themselves having to corral me back into the lab, and I would gently remind them to be thankful I’m not down in the Underground swilling Pepsi and popping cheeseburgers. A week ago I was a Chrononaut, a time traveling astronaut. A week ago I was a walking, talking human being... now I am a voice in a shell, screaming as I fall into nightmares, and screaming from behind lifeless eyes.
***
March 4th, 2053 0500hrs.
Unit 76 Commons Chow Hall
“Good morning Lt. Bailey...” I smiled and yawned as I returned the salute of one of the new Jr. Officers to find their way to the chow hall at Unit 76. Most of the upper echelon wouldn’t be found dead eating in the chow hall with all the green earned nubs; I however remember what it was like to be one of those green eared nubs, and I found their enthusiasm contagious and much needed on most mornings. This was one of those mornings. After six solid weeks of star charting and time jumping I have been through three major wars, the plague, and we still had yet to collect the DNA sample of one Nikolai Romanov. The Tsar was a ghost.... just as elusive in his own time as he is in our current history books. Our historians have been giddy at attempting to make this DNA find, to finally know what really happened to the Romanov family.
My team has been worked time and half, and the pressure is starting to show, mistakes are being made, mistakes that can change the future if not mended. Romanov and his family have gone into seclusion in their home in Ekatarainburg. No one new has been allowed onto the premises, and Breen’s deadline is getting closer and closer. I have to wonder, why is it so important that we know? What could we possibly gain from knowing what happened to them? Could we prevent it, and if we did, what would it do to the future? Sometimes I have to wonder why we are doing all this, are we playing God?
“Finn? You in there?” Mac was waving her hand in front of my face as I was apparently staring into my tray of food, oblivious. I blinked hard and looked up to return the warm smile in front of me. Mac was one of our Civilian consultants, a computer whiz plucked straight from Berkeley to head up the science of our time travel. Unlike the bigwigs in the Technical Division, and much like myself, she found the bustling community of the Unit 76 chow hall to be a place of refuge.
“Mackenzie, I see you survived another 18 hour day with the Commander. Have you slept at all?” like mine, her eyes were sunk with dark circles.
“To quote the good Commander ‘sleep is for the weak... we must forge on in hope to save our future....’ or some such nonsense. Is that guy for real? I only thought jarheads like that existed in movies.” I just answered her with an eye roll.
Mac and I finished our breakfast in silence, watching the others in the hall go through their morning routines. Today I had hoped to break free a little early to enjoy some time driving out to Sequim and get some shopping done. I knew though that that was not in the cards, once again I was going to be plunged back into the throes of Revolutionary Russia. I’m just thankful they weren’t sending me back as a socialite, I’ve really begun to loathe corsets. A man must have invented them because no sane woman would seriously want to do that to herself on purpose. It’s torture, really. I really wasn’t in the mood to play God today, I was in the mood to get in my car and just drive, and just forget about all that I have been a witness to. My life was no longer my own to lead. I no longer had control over whether I would eat Cheerios for breakfast or just a bacon and toast and jelly sandwich. It’s the simple stuff that we take for granted. Today I just wanted to be free, but that was no longer a possibility, not with Commander Breen in charge of the program.
“Finn! Lt. Commander Finn! Are you with us today?” Breen was about five inches away from my face as I sat at my briefing desk daydreaming about the beaches of the Washington Coast, just driving, just being any place but here. I blinked twice and shot him my ten-second dirty look as if to say ‘back away Jack!’.
“Commander Breen, I’m here...” I straightened in my chair. I was really beginning to resent him and I know he resented me .
“Very well then... ok people, today we are going to poke one last hole in the wormhole to try to extract Romanov. Finn you are our key traveller, you will lead the team consisting of Holliman, English and Tate. Dr. Douglas and her team will be awaiting extraction at approximately fifteen hundred. If, I say if extraction is successful, you can look forward to an extended leave.” the two magic words escaped his thin lips, the rest was noise. Mac and I exchanged glances, Holliman whispered ‘finally’ under his breath. Breen stood and exited as quickly as he entered the small briefing room. I was now in charge.
“As Breen said earlier, we’ve got a busy day ahead of us, go and get in garb and meet me back here at nine. Let’s just remember why we’re here, it’s real easy to forget when we’re in the fantasy of the past. Booyah!” Normally I was all hyped about a jump, but today was different, today I felt off-kilter. Everything felt out of sync when it came to this assignment and I just couldn’t put a finger on it. The rest of the team left hurriedly to go change, I took my time, my stomach was in knots. Why? Was it fear, but fear of what? The last time I was in Saint Petersburg it was cold and icy, like the stare of the man in the blue cloak. Was that it? Was I afraid of the man?
****
“Dr. Temple, we still have no movement, conscious or subconscious. It’s been three months, no family or friends have come to claim her.” the nurse just stared down at my lifeless figure, she had no idea I could hear her. I could smell the scent of coffee on her breath and feel her cold, gloved latex hand run up and down my lifeless arm. I wanted to scream, yet my throat was paralyzed.
****
“Lt. English, I want you to have my back, I don’t feel good about going in alone. I know we’ve got Holliman as our muscle, I need you to bring some hardware. Romanov is not going to be an easy sample.” English was our expert swordsman, a transfer from the British Royal Navy, we have dubbed him our ‘James Bond’. Going back to the early twentieth century meant one thing, we could not bring any technology. Any glimpse of the future could be devastating, life altering. Holliman was almost burned at the stake as a heretic after a local villager discovered his ‘magic box of people’.... his iPod privileges have since been revoked. All the technology we are so used to we forget that it could change the course of history if brought into the past. Tate was our anthropologist.. Theodice Pericles Tate was the son of a Greek fisherman’s daughter and legendary American film star Thurman Tate; and he didn’t let you forget it.. Holliman was our muscle, having trained with the elite HALO, Combined Re-con, and Seal teams of the US Navy and then the US Space Force. Holliman makes sure that we all come back in one piece, and one didn’t let the other forget their place in the whole scenario.
Emerging from the dressing rooms in the prep department we all looked as if we had stepped out of early twentieth century Russia with our high collars, wool capes and fur hats. I was the last to emerge, dressed in a blood red silk dress and black wool cape and matching black fur muff and hat. My hair hurt, pulled tight into a bun and pinned up under the itchy fur hat. Russian fashion was beautiful, I didn’t say comfortable. The men were all in grey wool suits and black wool capes, all tapping their walking sticks impatiently as I fussed and pulled at my get up. Inside the linings of our suits were monitors to track our breathing and locations while we were gone. All of this technology had to be hidden, if not there was a good chance we could alter history, and that’s not what this program was about.
***
