Temporal Exploring 101 - First Transit

I.45 Trapped

Late at night, between 11 p.m. and midnight, Natty and I used to go outside, into the park that surrounded the school building, for a quick smoke. We would look at the stars and chat for about ten minutes before returning to our dorm room.

That night, we were ambushed. I felt someone seize me from behind. A hand closed over my mouth. Instinctively, I kicked and struggled, but I was no match for my assailant.

The three pyrtar tied Natty and me up and taped our mouths to keep us from calling for help. Then they carried us all the way to the school's new volleyball hall. In there, they dumped us onto the floor.

I saw Natty's bag hit the floor, next to her. They had not left it outside as I had hoped, a possible clue for people who might be looking for us.

For some reason, the pyrtar had kept us alive so far. I was fairly sure that this would not remain so for very long.

They were talking to each other now, in Pyrtari. A sure sign that Natty and I were not meant to live.

"This is perfect," the female observed. "This hall will burn like cinder." She turned towards one of the males. "Have you prepared the fuel and the fire accelerant?"

"Everything is ready," he replied. "But shouldn't we first make sure that they are dead?"

"It is preferable that it looks like an accident. We shall stand guard outside, to make sure nobody escapes the inferno." The second male looked at us and smiled unpleasantly. "Not that they are likely to go anywhere, anytime soon."

"Ah, time to go home. Finally," the woman breathed. She sounded wistful.

Helpless, I watched them leave the building, locking the door behind themselves.

A few minutes later what sounded like a series of small-scale explosions could be heard, followed by the terrible roar of a huge fire.

Apparently, I was not of the stuff heroes are made of. Or heroines.

Lying there, tied up on the floor, straining desperately against the tape that tied my wrists and ankles and listening to the sounds of the raging fire that was meant to kill us, I literally peed my pants. So did Natty – I could see the wetness spread over the seat of her knickers.

Not that this bothered me much, at the time. I was mostly concerned with fighting my growing sense of despair.

So this was what was going to happen to Natty Fogg, after her discovery of the equations that would become a cornerstone of temporal physics.

She would not fade to obscurity, or anything of that sort. Rather, she was going to be killed in a fire in her school's volleyball hall, and I was going to die here with her. What a stupid, pointless way to die.

Exhausted, I ceased struggling against my bonds, at least for the moment.

Natty was twisting and squirming on the floor, but purposefully so, making her body move inch by inch towards the nearest wall.

Momentarily distracted from my own despair, I watched her, wondering what she was trying to achieve. Only when she had reached the radiator, I started to understand, as she began to rub the ties that bound her wrists against a metal edge, sawing at them.

She did not cease in her efforts, even after she cut herself. Though I could not see how this would help us, I found that I admired her obstinacy and her relentless courage. Natty differed from me, in that. She was a survivor. Perhaps she had learned to be like that during the years when she had lived on the streets, as a member of Clyde's gang of street kids.

Eventually, she managed to cut through the tapes around her wrists. After that, it did not take her long to free her legs too. She tore the tape from her mouth and crawled over to where I was lying.

"Cathy? Are you okay?"

I nodded. Natty began to remove the tape that bound me.

Our initial exhilaration gave way to despair when we realized the severity of the situation.

The flames of the fire raging outside could already be seen through the skylights. All the doors were locked and we found that we were unable to open them by force. Perhaps that was just as well, as they kept out the fire, at least for the moment.

"What's going on? Where the fuck are the fire brigades?" Natty muttered angrily.

"It must be past midnight, and St. Albert's is at least five kilometers from the nearest fire station." I sighed. "It is not even clear if people have already noticed that the volleyball hall is on fire."

I did not mention what the pyrtar had said about the fire accelerant and how the volleyball hall was going to burn like cinder. Nevertheless, Natty appeared to be able to read my mood.

"We are going to die in here, aren't we?" She savagely kicked a stool, sending it flying. "Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!" There were bright tears in her eyes. "All the things I was planning to do. And everything I have thought about and done so far, it is all for nothing."

Even through my own despair, it hurt me to watch her like this.

"Look, even if you were to die here, it would not all have been for nothing," I said.

She glared at me. "How do you mean?"

Since we were going to die here anyhow, I might as well tell her the truth.

"I have not been completely honest with you," I began. "See, I am not really from Omaha, Nebraska. And my dad is not teaching at the University of Aberdeen, either."

"Really? What a surprise." There was a bit of that old snark back in her voice.

"Well, yeah." I sighed. "You are not going to believe this, anyhow."

"Probably not." Unexpectedly, she grinned. "So tell me, who are you?"

"I am what you would call a time traveler," I explained. "From, you know, your future. More precisely, from the 23rd century."

"Yeah. Right."

"What's more, I am here because of you. You are going to be sort of famous, in the future. Because of ..." I hesitated. "Those solutions of your toy model field theory, the ones you wrote into your notebook. The older notebook, the one you buried. The red one. See, they dug up that metal box of yours, in 2187. Those equations of yours turned out to be important in the development of temporal physics."

"You are right, I do not believe a word of this." Natty laughed without humor. "But hey, if you are really a time traveler, why don't you save yourself by returning to your own time?"

"I wish I could." I groaned with frustration. "If only I had taken the effing ansible with me."

"The effing what?"

"My ansible. It is a device that allows you to communicate with ... well, with a far away space-time region. Like, the place and time that I come from."

Natty frowned. "What does it look like, your ansible?"

"It is like a small metal gadget, with lots of labeled buttons and a small display." I sighed. "But that's neither here nor there. Because I don't have it with me. Right now, it is safely stored on the bottom shelf of the closet in our room, hidden below my underwear."

Natty's face bore a strange expression. She appeared to be embarrassed and exhilarated at the same time.

"No, it isn't," she declared. "It isn't stored safely in the closet in our dorm room."

"Why not?"

"Because ..." Natty blushed. "Because I stole it."

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A / N : So things are coming to a head. Caught in the middle of a fiery inferno, Cathy has told Natty Fogg the truth, or part of the truth, at least.

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