Nanowrimo 2015 - catch up!

I was curious about just what it was that the historians and other researchers gathered from all the notes and recordings that I brought back from the early 21st century, but I feared that if I asked them questions, they would ask me more questions that I wasn't prepared to answer.  If it weren't for Connor, everything would have been fine.  I don't know why he threw me so much.  And I don't know why I didn't just come clean with Maria about him showing an interest in me.  According to protocol, that was what I should have done.  I think I was afraid Maria would make me go back and alter his memories of me, and for whatever reason, I didn't want to do that.  That aversion didn't make sense as I had done this sort of thing plenty of times before, but I didn't want to do that to him.

Still, I knew I would never see Connor again as long as I stayed quiet about him, so I decided to put him as far out of my mind as possible and move on with my job.  I did the short rest and relaxation regiment that Maria recommended:  listened to some music, played some ping pong, even did a little bit of sketching, careful to avoid men and elephants as the subjects of my art.  Maria seemed pleased, and within a few days, she was ready to give me my next assignment.

This one was another information gathering mission, but much more interesting than the last one I had been on.  This time, I was headed to England in the year 1560 to observe the operations of the palace of Queen Elizabeth the first.  Why was still not revealed to me, but at least this mission seemed much more historically significant and I could imagine that some interesting information would be gained, even if for no other purpose than pure human interest.  My "cover" on this mission was that I would be one of the maids working in the palace.  It would not be glamorous work, Maria warned me, but it would be important, just like every mission I went on.  Everything had a purpose, from the glamorous to the dirty to the mundane.  It all had a purpose, I was told, even if I didn't know what it was.

Well, the trip to England more than half a millenium ago was certainly not glamorous.  Let me just say: chamber pots.  When you think about time travel, you probably don't think about chamber pots, but that was the reality back then, and I didn't just have to use them.  As a maid, I had to empty them, too.  I was certainly thankful that the scientists who worked for the academy had injected me with all kinds of anti-bodies and anti-virals and whatever else they had developed to keep me from getting cholera or whatever else was running rampant back then.

Another interesting thing about going back in time is the differences in language.  I speak English, but English in 1560 was a bit different from English in 2100.  The best advice they usually give me is to talk as little as necessary if going more than 300 years into the past.  Still, they do give you a bit of a lesson on linguistics.  That's one skill you need to have as a time traveler:  the ability to learn and retain quite a bit of obscure information rather quickly and then, potentially, forget most of it so that you can make room for the next set of information for the next trip.

All that preparation did come in handy for this trip, though.  It seemed to go quite smoothly.  The hardest part was keeping my recorder hidden, but even that wasn't too hard given how tiny the thing was.  As on the trip before, my task was to observe, document, and share my reactions.  Not react, that might give it away that there was something odd about me, but to record my reactions later in the evening.

All in all, this was a rather good mission for me.  I got to observe some interesting things about how the rich and powerful lived so long ago.  It's strange to see how greatly they valued simple things that were clearly inferior to the things that common people of my day had.  Simple things like paper seemed so much more rare and exciting back then.

It was also interesting to learn more about Queen Elizabeth.  I had heard of her at one time or another, but knew basically nothing except that she was queen.  At the time when I went back to observe her, she was actually younger than I was.  She became queen when she was only 25, which fascinated me because that was the age I was when I joined the time travel academy.  I was four years advanced in my time line, age 29, when I went back to serve as a servant in her castle, but she was only two years advanced from when she became queen.  I admired her a lot for her young age combined with her apparent wisdom.  I rarely saw her around the palace, but I did see the numerous advisers she depended upon.  And from what I heard of the gossip among the servants, she listened to the advisers and trusted them, but still was able to think for herself.  She was, I felt, truly a woman ahead of her time.  I think that was the exact phrase I put in my report, "ahead of her time."

I think that phrase was what made Maria smile when I reported back to her, though it doesn't take a lot to make Maria smile.  "You did an excellent job," she told me when I returned from this four week mission.  "Any issues?"

This time, I felt honest when I answered, "No.  No issues and no one seemed suspicious of me."

"Good," Maria said with a nod.  "This information you've gathered is fantastic.  You've earned yourself a rest.  Go deliver your report to the historians and then the rest of the week is yours."

I gave my own nod of agreement and did as I was told.  As much as I had enjoyed this mission, I was exhausted.  Two four week missions in a row.  I had not expected that, but I had kind-of appreciated it.  The second long mission had completely taken my mind off of the first one, at least until I got back to my present time and made that observation.

That night I did have a strange dream.  I was back in Elizabethean England, doing my usual work as a maid, when I saw one of Elizabeth's advisers leaving from an audience with her.  When he looked at me, I dropped the tray I was carrying in surprise.  It was Connor, or at least someone who looked exactly like him, leaving the queen's audience chamber.  Before he could say anything, I woke up, extremely confused.  This, again, was exactly the kind of incident I should report.  Dreams often had hidden meaning and dreaming an unusual dream about someone you had seen on a mission often indicated that there was some unfinished business or other concern with that individual, or so I was told.  But I still felt like it wasn't in my best interest, or in Connor's, to report what I had just seen, so I resolved not to do so and did my best to go back to sleep.


From then on, though I tried to pretend nothing was wrong, it was clear that something was.  It seemed like after every mission I went on, I would come back home and have a dream that combined Connor with that mission.  I went back to spy on Leonardo da Vinci around the time he painted the Mona Lisa, and then I dreamed that it was Connor creating that famous painting.  I went to Pearl Harbor the day the Japanese bombed the island to save a specific sailor who was of particular importance (this was one of the most rewarding missions I went on incidentally - saving a life), and when I returned home, I dreamed the sailor had been Connor.

And then was the time I went back just 70 years and it didn't even take a dream for me to see someone who looked just like Connor.

I mentioned before that 2057 was the year when we almost destroyed the whole planet.  There had been a huge standoff between European countries and China.  The European countries, in a mad attempt to unify and become stronger, had just absolved their national borders and become a single entity simply known as the "European Union" echoing the governing body over the individual countries that had existed for quite some time.  The really scary part about the whole situation was that there were still so many scattered weapons and groups that if one small subset decided to explode, they could lead the whole world to explode.  My job was to go back in time and calm the key elements that the historians told me had been close to exploding.

As always, I was told not to worry too much because I had clearly already succeeded at my mission, since the world was not in total chaos.  All I had to do was connect with some of the people in the most at-risk weapon cells, smile a little, find a way to infect people with the airborne calming agents I had been given, and that should be enough.  It all went well for the first several cells I encountered and I was on the final leg of my mission when it all went horribly wrong.

I was hanging around the cafeteria area of the base, waiting for the man I was supposed to meet up with to influence.  His name was Samuel Trete.  I didn't have a photo or a physical description, so all I could do was listen for the name.  When I heard it, I looked up to see who was being addressed.  I saw a tall young man with brown hair, but only from behind.  He was leaving the cafeteria, so I got up and followed him.  Once we got a fair distance away and I didn't see many other people around, I addressed him, "Samuel?"

He turned to look at me and my eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.  I didn't know what to say.  Strangely, he seemed just as shocked to see me as I was to see him.  He was the one who spoke:  "You look just like..."

"Connor!" I interrupted.

Now he looked really scared.  "You knew my grandpa?" he asked.

"No!" I quickly exclaimed.  "I mean, maybe.  Who's your grandpa?"

"Connor Harris," Samuel said.  "And who the hell are you?"

"I'm..." I didn't know what to say or do, but the situation was clearly getting out of hand, so I tried to pull out the calming agent I was supposed to use, but he noticed.

"What are you doing?" he demanded taking a step back.

"I'm..."

"What are you doing?!"

People were starting to look at us now, so I opted to put the device away and just use my words to calm him down.  "Listen," I said, holding my hands out in an effort to show him I no longer had anything with which to threaten him, "Just calm down.  I'm not here to hurt you."

"Like hell you're not!" he shouted.  "Why would you be standing there looking like that if not to mess with me?"

"Looking like what?" I asked, genuinely baffled.

"Don't play dumb," he ordered, "you're a spy!"  And he ran off shouting "Spy!  Spy!"  At this point everyone was staring and some security officers were starting to approach.  I saw them pick up the pace when Samuel started shouting "spy", so I had no choice by to run as fast as I could, and as soon as I could duck around a corner, I pressed the recall button on my time travel device, surely leaving the security officers baffled and confused.  As I pressed the button, I remember thinking about what an unexpected disaster that had been and wondering how it was all going to work itself out.  After all, I knew it had to work itself out since there was no power in anything I did to really change the past.  Oh, how wrong I was.

When I got back, Maria was not smiling.  Maria was not smiling.  She was always smiling.  But today she was not smiling.  She was fuming.  I had never heard her swear before then.  "What the hell did you do?" she demanded.

I was at a loss for words, but she clearly wanted me to say something, so I just said, "What do you mean?"

"What do I mean?!" Maria yelled.  "What do I mean?!  If it weren't for our historical preservation measures, I supposed I wouldn't even know, but unluckily for you I do know!"

"Know what?" I asked, starting to feel a bit annoyed.

"You changed it!" Maria shouted.  "You changed the past!"

My heart felt like it had stopped beating, and then, suddenly, all I could feel was it pounding in my chest.  "I changed the past?" I asked.

"Yes!" Maria exclaimed, throwing her arms up in the air.  "Beijing.  Rome.  They're both gone!  What the hell did you do?"

"N-nothing," I stammered.  "I mean, the last guy, Samuel, he freaked out on my a little, I had to come back..."

"You came back too soon," Maria said, finally calming down a little.  "You had to stay and finish the mission.  You know that."

"I also know that I can't change the past," I said, trying to defend myself.

Maria shook her head and frowned.  "Well, if you did anything right," she said, "it was in proving that that assumption was totally, 110% wrong.  Not only did you change the past, you made it worse."

I couldn't believe what I was hearing.  My whole life I had believed in this idea of time travel making things better if it had the power to do anything, and now I was hearing that I had made things worse.  I couldn't handle it.  I just broke down.  I dropped to my knees and started crying.  "I'm so sorry," I sobbed.  "I'm so, so sorry.  Send me back.  I'll make it right!"

I was staring at the floor and didn't notice Maria walk up to me, but I felt her hand stroking my hair and I looked up at her.  She was actually smiling.  Not mockingly, or happily, but in a comforting way.  "I know," she said, "I know you're sorry.  And I'm sorry for being so harsh.  I just wanted you to realize just how bad it was and how important it was that you go back and make it right."

"I will make it right," I said, reaching up to wipe the tears from my eyes.  "I'll do whatever it takes.  I swear."

Maria gave me her hand and helped me stand back up.  "I'm glad to hear that," she said calmly, "because the historians have figured out what you must do to fix it, and it's going to be the hardest thing you've ever had to do."

"What is it?" I asked, feeling my confidence waver a bit.

"You're going to have to go back to 2016 and kill Samuel's grandfather."

"His grandfather?"

Maria nodded.  "Yes," she said.  "A man named Connor Harris.  I believe you may have met him on a previous mission."

My jaw dropped so fast it hurt.  "Are you kidding me?" I asked.

Maria shook her head.  "I never kid," she said, deathly serious.  "It's the only way."

I felt angry.  I had said I would do anything to make it right, but killing someone?  And specifically Connor, the man I had been strangely dreaming about for months?  How could I possibly....

"Why can't I just go back to 2057 and fix it there?" I asked.

Maria shook her head.  "Haven't you learned by now that it isn't that easy?" she asked, annoyance seeping back into her voice.  And then she gave me this terrifying look that seemed to say, "I know."  But out loud she said, "Unless you think this one man's life is more important than the lives of millions?"

"No, it's not that," I quickly said, not really realizing what I was saying.

"Then what is it?" Maria asked.  For the first time, I saw something evil in her eyes as she looked at me.  I don't know how else to describe it, but it was almost like I could picture her laughing at my misfortune, and it was as if I could finally understand what had been keeping me from telling her about Connor all this time.  Somehow I knew all along that I was going to be forced to do something terrible to Connor and I knew I didn't want to.  But what could I say?

"Alright, I'll do it," I said, hoping I could come up with another way before they sent me on the mission.

"Good," Maria said with a perfunctory nod.  "You'll leave tomorrow."

That night, the dream I had went back all the way to my time in Africa when I shot that elephant, except now instead of shooting an elephant, it was Connor that they were asking me to shoot.  I woke up from that one thinking of the painting I had drawn months before and the words my mother had spoken about it.  Was it a sunset or a sunrise?  Was this the end of the beginning?  I only had one day to decided.