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... a Chrononaut.
***
March 4th, 2053 0500hrs.
Unit 76 Commons Chow Hall
“Good morning Commander Finn.” 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 Czar 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 near them, and our window of time is slowly closing. 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? Sometimes I wonder. Our government sure has done a good job of it, most of it under the guise of being for the ‘betterment of our country’.
“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. The ‘science’ is managing the small device found on an abandoned and sunken spacecraft found in the waters off the coast of Washington some time in the 1980’s.
Unlike the bigwigs in the Technical Division, and much like myself, Mackenzie found the bustling community of the Unit 76 chow hall to be a place of refuge. Mainly a refuge from our demanding schedule and the ‘Nest of Geeks with a Superiority Complex’ . That’s what Mackenzie calls our Scientific Senate.
“Mackenzie, I see you survived another 18 hour 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.
OVERHEAD VOICE: Attention Unit 76 Guests, would the Guest who borrowed Commander Howell’s toothbrush please return it immediately. Thank you and have a pleasant day.
A low rumble of laughter rolled through the chow hall. Once again the pressure had gotten to someone, and well.... things happen. This wasn’t the first time and it won’t be the last. Well it may be, depending on what happens with Commander Howell’s toothbrush.
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.
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