argentum_ls (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
argentum_ls) wrote2012-03-29 07:19 pm
argentum_ls) wrote2012-03-29 07:19 pm
Fanfic: Lane Change [Tomorrow People (1973)]
Title: Lane Change
Summary: After "A Rift in Time," John, Stephen, and Elizabeth discover that their travels aren't over.
Word Count: 3534
Museums at night were so much bigger than they were during the day, every noise unnaturally loud, the ground taking so much longer to cover. Stephen went up on his tiptoes as he walked, for all the good it did. His steps, and those of John and Elizabeth, too, seemed to echo off the marble flooring like whip cracks. The gaslights that lined the walls had been reduced to low burning sparks that did nothing to illuminate. The only light they had came from the torches each of the three held, though the yellowish beams were swallowed by the long halls and Cathedral ceilings of the building.
Stephen peered at what he could see of the displays as they slipped past. The glare of his torch off the glass cases made odd plays of shadow and light, stretched the fossils beyond any recognizable shape and cast impressions of faces into shards of pottery and scraps of cloth. It felt like everything was watching him, waiting to jump out at him, starting with the stuffed remains of the Dodo that made his heart pound in his chest and his breath come tight. “What’s the good of having special powers if we can’t teleport directly?” he grumbled
“Oh, come off it, Stephen,” John bit out. He was no less tense, but he fancied himself better at hiding it. At seventeen, he felt himself above such childish concerns such as a fear of Things jumping out of darkness, an attitude which Stephen found grating since it seemed to be a constant condemnation of the perfectly natural fears the rest of the group held. “It’s just a museum. Nothing in here is going to hurt you.”
“You say that now,” Stephen responded. One never knew where threats were going to come from. He’d had enough experience since breaking out as a Tomorrow People to understand that all too well. If nothing else, he was certain that a guard was going to come around the corner at any second, and then what were they going to do? None of them had brought a stun gun. It crossed his mind to wonder what a guard from 1912 would think of their grouping: two white males and a black female, all three teenagers or close to it, skulking about a museum late at night. At least they didn’t have to worry about their language, accents, or clothing. The AE suits they wore would show the guard what he expected to see. Should save them some grief.
“Besides,” John continued, “you know that we couldn’t teleport straight in because of how Hyperspace is warped around the building.”
Stephen blinked at him. “And that’s not setting off your ‘this is a trap’ alarms?”
“What are we looking for again?” Elizabeth interrupted before John could come up with some explanation for how a place that seemed to be specifically guarded against The Tomorrow People—in a time, mind you, where the TP didn’t yet exist—shouldn’t be cause for alarm. She shined her torch along the wall, searching for the signs that indicated what section they were in. Fluttering noises came from the ceiling as her light swept past. “A vase?”
Stephen shook his head at the futility of the search. How were they supposed to find one vase in the whole museum?
“Just the lid,” John responded. “The sister to the one Peter showed us.” He always sounded a little patronizing when he explained things, and now was no different. Peter the Time Guardian had sent The Tomorrow People dream images of a vase after he was trapped in Ancient Roman times. The writing on the combined vase and its lid had contained directions for how to build a time travel device that would allow the Tomorrow People to use the time lanes and travel back to rescue Peter. They had done that; they had thought the mission was over.
Then the dreams started again. New images, same technique to communicate across the centuries. The only problem was that this lid they needed hadn’t survived the 20th century. Its last known sighting was in a Prussian museum prior to the Great War. While there were no guarantees that it had been destroyed, or when it had been destroyed, the point remained the same: they had to go back in time again to retrieve the artifact. The Tomorrow People had had to convince the Time Guardians that a short jaunt within their own century was acceptable, a task which proved easier than they had expected. Peter’s grandfather hadn’t forgotten his debts, and he opened the Time Lanes to them on the condition that they do nothing, interact with no one, apart from retrieving the vase.
“This way,” Elizabeth said, flashing the sign that indicated the direction to the Roman artifacts. She turned and led the others down a corridor that, if anything, was darker and creepier than the one they had just been in.
“What are we supposed to do with it when we find it?” Stephen asked. The torch was growing slippery in his hands, either from his nervousness or the muggy air in the building. He swapped it long enough to dry his hands on his trouser legs. The effort didn’t help. The museum’s air was close and quite humid, which explained why all the exhibits were behind sealed glass cases rather than being open as they were in his time with the increasing presence of climate control in public buildings.
“I would presume we’re supposed to follow the directions,” John responded, as if the concept had never occurred to Stephen.
Stephen shot a glower at John’s back that eased when Elizabeth laid a calming hand on his arm.
“I believe what Stephen is asking,” Elizabeth said, “is why do we need new directions on making a time travel device? Shouldn’t the old ones we have be sufficient?”
Stephen relaxed slightly. That had been one of the things he was concerned about, though how Elizabeth had understood that from what he’d said was beyond him. It could be disconcerting how well Elizabeth could read people, a skill that had no doubt lead to her decision to be a teacher in the first place. For a second, he had envisioned the three of them as a strange sort of tour group, Elizabeth the teacher with John and himself as the students. The image of John being brought down to his level mollified him. John only a couple of years older than him, and had only been a Tomorrow Person a few months longer, but he acted like he was everyone’s parent or boss.
“You’re right,” John replied, the stiffness in his back easing at the admission. “I spoke in haste.” He swept his torch around the room as he tried to narrow in on the right display case. The exhibits were labeled, but they were labeled in German, and even the amazing powers of the AE suits the Tomorrow People wore—the All Environment suits that mimicked every kind of clothing and contained all the necessary life support equipment to protect the homo superiors inside from any kind of inimical situation—couldn’t translate writing. “The problem is that while we know more-or-less when Peter is,” John explained, “we don’t know where. The Roman Empire in our time stream was a big enough place. If we overshoot or undershoot our arrival by even a few hundred feet, we could spend the rest of our lives wandering around. And we already know that we won’t have our special powers at all when we’re there.”
Stephen nodded, remembering that helplessness all too well. Gaius—the alien who had used the first disruption in the time stream to retain the discovery of the steam engine and to springboard from that to his ascendency as the first Emperor of a Roman Empire that had encompassed the entire world and that had lasted into what should have been John, Elizabeth, and Stephen’s time—had taken the precautionary measure of planting disruptors around his empire that prevented any interference from either the Tomorrow People or the Galactic Federation.
Elizabeth stopped in front of a display case with pottery similar in style and design to the vase lid for which they were searching. All three of them trained their torches on contents, as if failure to keep them in their sight now that they had been found would allow the artifacts to escape.
“So what do we do now?” Stephen asked. “Break the glass?” He brought the butt of his torch up, fully intending to slam it into the glass, though the resulting crash would no doubt summon every guard in the building. Fortunately, the Hyperspace disruption that prevented them from honing in on the lid’s precise location didn’t block all teleporting. Once they had the vase, they would disappear and no one would ever know what had happened. He felt a touch of guilt at the blame that would fall upon the guard in charge of this room, but this was a case where the bigger picture was more important than whether one person lost his job. If the Time Lanes weren’t protected, who knew what atrocities would befall the planet.
John shook his head. “There’s no need for that.” He retrieved a small disc from his pocket and set it on the top of the case. The matter transporter was about the size of Elizabeth’s palm and looked a little like a white hockey puck. The glass disappeared at a thought from him, allowing him to reach in and pick up the lid, one they recognized easily. It really was the sister to other one, its drawings nearly identical. He held it out and Elizabeth and Stephen reached out at the same time to touch it, feeling a sort of reverence for a work of such beauty that had been created thousands of years before and had survived nearly intact. From Elizabeth, Stephen picked up a pang of regret at its loss, at the loss of all the artworks and artifacts stored in this building that would be destroyed during the war. He opened his mouth to needle her, a quip forming about how you could take the art teacher out of the classroom…
The second their hands touched the vase, they were enveloped in a burst of blinding light. Stephen’s thoughts scattered. His whole body felt discombobulated, like he was on the verge of having his atoms drift apart. This was like no teleport he had ever experienced.
~~~~
The light cleared and the Tomorrow People stepped down from the jaunting pad. No, that wasn’t right. Stephen blinked, trying to gather back his displaced thoughts. The Tomorrow People hadn’t been teleporting; they had been forcibly transported. His feet landed on uneven ground that crumbled beneath his step; he fell forward, grabbing onto Elizabeth’s arm to keep his balance. This wasn’t the Lab. They were outside. As far as he could see was total devastation, broken heaps of masonry and rusted metal that used to be buildings, shattered and ruined roadways, and a pervasive stink of rot. Stephen tugged the collar of his shirt up to cover his nose, in a vain attempt to filter the air. Elizabeth and John each held their arms over their face with similar intent. The vase’s lid had vanished as if the act of transporting them had been enough to destroy it.
[Where are we?] Stephen asked, appealing to his telepathy for the first time. They didn’t normally use that special power when they were standing next to each other—some habits from their pre-breakout days weren’t worth letting go of—but he didn’t want to risk drawing more breath than necessary. The sky was an unbroken slate gray and felt lower than it normally did, like it was pressing in on them. [Did we get teleported to a different planet?]
[You know we can’t teleport off-planet without a power boost from TIM,] John reminded them, though his thoughts didn’t sound nearly as sure as his spoken words would have. TIM, their biotronic computer, hadn’t been consulted in regards to their use of the Time Lanes. He wouldn’t have approved.
[Fine. Did we get transported to a different planet?] Stephen thought, though the clarification didn’t seem necessary to him. They were speaking telepathically; John and Elizabeth knew what he meant.
“You are very much on Earth,” TIM’s voice broke in. The Tomorrow People jumped, turned around slowly. The man before them was tall, standing military straight, and despite sharing his cultured voice and even tones, was definitely not TIM. He wore long red and gold robes that were heavily embroidered and tasseled. A red hat like the Pope’s miter balanced precariously on his head. The outfit completely clashed with the surroundings. He would have to be one of the sixty-four clone brothers that had served as the computer’s basis. Stephen winced; TIM’s disapproval was nothing compared to the problem they now had. The figure took a step toward them. “This is what remains of late 20th century Londinium.” He made a sweeping motion with his arm, taking in the devastation that surrounded them. His disapproval was palpable.
Only now did Stephen start to recognize that there were no signs of life. He’d seen enough ruins in his life, and he knew that when the structures that man built weren’t cared for, they were always quickly consumed under weeds and saplings. While the buildings here had collapsed, nature hadn’t come to reclaim this area. He wondered what had happened, while having a sinking feeling that their recovery of the vase had had something to do with it. Touching it is what had transported them here; he knew that. What he didn’t know was how, why, or what had happened to cause the total destruction of his city.
“I am Tirron Inos Mosta,” the man said, taking another careful step forward among the rubble. He pressed the flats of his palms together in front of him and bowed slightly toward John. When he straightened up, he asked, “Was that a correct greeting? I’ve been attempting to research the customs of Earth, though much knowledge was destroyed in the tenth Romanic wars.”
John replicated the bow, a small smile playing around his lips. His black hair ruffled in a breeze that sprang up from nowhere. Earth’s representatives from the Galactic Federation tried to fit in, and never managed to get the details right. They deserved credit for trying, though, so John never sought to correct their errors. Elizabeth wasn’t quite so polite. She had turned away slightly, obviously repressing a laugh at Tirron’s excessive formality, especially in their current setting. “We are honored to meet you, Your Excellency,” John intoned. “I am John.” He indicated himself, then pointed to Elizabeth and Stephen in turn as he introduced them. They greeted the Ambassador with smaller, more self-conscious, versions of the bow.
“What happened here?” Stephen interjected, before his own laughter could break through. He knew John would be irked at him for not kowtowing, but he didn’t care. One second the Tomorrow People had been in a timeline that was recognizably their own, and the next they weren’t. Stephen’s world of 1975 had its negatives and he knew he could be pretty wrapped up in sport and school and being a Tomorrow Person to be aware of all that was going on, but he was pretty sure he would have noticed the apocalypse.
John’s face darkened, and he shot a look of disapproval at Stephen. “Please forgive my friend,” he said. “He can be impatient.”
Tirron waved off the request. “It is no concern. Your question was anticipated.” He swept his gaze over the landscape, sobering visibly from his pride at demonstrating his knowledge of Earth customs. “The vase you were sent for was a ruse,” Tirron explained.
“I knew it!” Stephen exclaimed.
“Quiet, Stephen,” John admonished. “What do you mean?” he asked, turning back to the Ambassador.
It was the breeze that gave it away. The direction it was blowing meant that Stephen had to keep brushing his longish hair out of his eyes. He raised his hand yet again, and noticed that Tirron’s robes weren’t swaying. [John, Elizabeth,] he sent, trying to project a warning.
“We needed to bring you here,” Tirron replied. “You needed to see what the outcome would be.”
“We?” John asked.
Tirron’s image flickered, like a television signal that was losing its strength. “I am Tirron Inos Mosta,” the Ambassador repeated, pressing the flats of his palms together—
“Get away!” Elizabeth yelled. She was already backing up, her face twisted with surprise and shock. Her hands went toward the jaunting band wrapped around her stomach as she mentally prepared to teleport back.
Tirron’s image vanished. In its place stood the equally tall Gaius, attired in his white woolen tunic and leather sandals that he held as a symbol and reminder of the origins of his power. His smile to them was filled with self-satisfaction. “Did you really think I wouldn’t learn from your young friend?” he said, obviously referring to Peter. “He showed me what to do.” He frowned for a moment. “I thought after the first time you stopped me that you might not be so easy to trick. You really are just children.”
John sputtered. “Why did you bring us here?” he asked.
Gaius shook his head. “To get you out of the way, of course,” he replied. He tapped a band on his wrist, glancing at it quickly as it if were a watch. “And now that you’re here, I’ll be going. I have a universe to conquer.” With that, he vanished, leaving The Tomorrow People alone in the ruins of London, more questions racing through their brains than they could possibly ask.
“I can’t jaunt,” Elizabeth stated. She closed her eyes, concentrating, with her hands on her belt. Nothing happened.
[TIM, jaunt us in,], John ordered. Stephen heard it. Elizabeth heard it. There was no one else to hear it. TIM didn’t exist in this world—which meant they were trapped. Normally, they could teleport under their own power, thought not very far. The math was too complicated. They didn’t have the ability to travel through time on their own at all, and now it seemed they couldn’t teleport either. Stephen felt a chill run down his spine. What was worse: they couldn’t count on any help. Even if Tirron and the Galactic Federation did exist, that didn’t mean they had any interest in Earth’s affairs, especially if the Tomorrow People had never existed in this timeline. Gaius had clearly created the projection in order to keep the Tomorrow People in place, maybe to get them to let their guards down, probably to allow himself a chance to gloat at their expense. Who knew what his reasons were. One of the problems with the Tomorrow People’s innate pacifism is that they didn’t have the ability to understand violence or the reasons anyone might use it.
Stephen looked around at the devastated landscape, and at his friends standing against, the only life for who knew how far in any direction. Gaius had done this. This was supposed to be their home city and their home century, and it wasn’t either. The Tomorrow People were supposed to be Earth’s protectors, no matter what Earth needed protecting from. Yet, with nothing more than a message in a dream, Gaius had won. It was all he could do not to crumble to the ground.
Elizabeth dropped her hands and starred off toward where the horizon should be, her dark skin looking gray from shock and the inadequate sun that diffused through the clouds, that Stephen wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that she’d turned to stone. He rather thought she had the right idea. Then she started to walk forward, her feet kicking up dust with each step. “Let’s go,” she said, when it became clear that the boys had no intention of moving.
“Where to?” John asked. His fingers still rested on his jaunting belt, as if keeping them there would coerce the item into working, despite the fact that it wouldn’t work at all without TIM around.
She rolled her eyes skyward, as if searching for signs of the Galactic Federation behind the clouds. “I don’t know,” she replied. “With as many aliens as have visited this planet, there has to be something here that we can use to get home.”
John was nodding before she finished speaking, and Stephen was already half way to his feet. The spark of hope was enough to get them motivated again. The planet was a wasteland, and there was no telling if humanity still had any purchase on it, but the Tomorrow People had a responsibility to protect it. With this awareness, they set off. Gaius might have won for now, but they had undone his crimes once. Though it might take them awhile, the Tomorrow People would figure out how to set the world and the time lanes back on their correct paths.
END
Fulfills AU Bingo squares #7 (post-apocalypse), #8 (aliens), #12 (early 20th century), #13 (wild card: time travel).
Summary: After "A Rift in Time," John, Stephen, and Elizabeth discover that their travels aren't over.
Word Count: 3534
Museums at night were so much bigger than they were during the day, every noise unnaturally loud, the ground taking so much longer to cover. Stephen went up on his tiptoes as he walked, for all the good it did. His steps, and those of John and Elizabeth, too, seemed to echo off the marble flooring like whip cracks. The gaslights that lined the walls had been reduced to low burning sparks that did nothing to illuminate. The only light they had came from the torches each of the three held, though the yellowish beams were swallowed by the long halls and Cathedral ceilings of the building.
Stephen peered at what he could see of the displays as they slipped past. The glare of his torch off the glass cases made odd plays of shadow and light, stretched the fossils beyond any recognizable shape and cast impressions of faces into shards of pottery and scraps of cloth. It felt like everything was watching him, waiting to jump out at him, starting with the stuffed remains of the Dodo that made his heart pound in his chest and his breath come tight. “What’s the good of having special powers if we can’t teleport directly?” he grumbled
“Oh, come off it, Stephen,” John bit out. He was no less tense, but he fancied himself better at hiding it. At seventeen, he felt himself above such childish concerns such as a fear of Things jumping out of darkness, an attitude which Stephen found grating since it seemed to be a constant condemnation of the perfectly natural fears the rest of the group held. “It’s just a museum. Nothing in here is going to hurt you.”
“You say that now,” Stephen responded. One never knew where threats were going to come from. He’d had enough experience since breaking out as a Tomorrow People to understand that all too well. If nothing else, he was certain that a guard was going to come around the corner at any second, and then what were they going to do? None of them had brought a stun gun. It crossed his mind to wonder what a guard from 1912 would think of their grouping: two white males and a black female, all three teenagers or close to it, skulking about a museum late at night. At least they didn’t have to worry about their language, accents, or clothing. The AE suits they wore would show the guard what he expected to see. Should save them some grief.
“Besides,” John continued, “you know that we couldn’t teleport straight in because of how Hyperspace is warped around the building.”
Stephen blinked at him. “And that’s not setting off your ‘this is a trap’ alarms?”
“What are we looking for again?” Elizabeth interrupted before John could come up with some explanation for how a place that seemed to be specifically guarded against The Tomorrow People—in a time, mind you, where the TP didn’t yet exist—shouldn’t be cause for alarm. She shined her torch along the wall, searching for the signs that indicated what section they were in. Fluttering noises came from the ceiling as her light swept past. “A vase?”
Stephen shook his head at the futility of the search. How were they supposed to find one vase in the whole museum?
“Just the lid,” John responded. “The sister to the one Peter showed us.” He always sounded a little patronizing when he explained things, and now was no different. Peter the Time Guardian had sent The Tomorrow People dream images of a vase after he was trapped in Ancient Roman times. The writing on the combined vase and its lid had contained directions for how to build a time travel device that would allow the Tomorrow People to use the time lanes and travel back to rescue Peter. They had done that; they had thought the mission was over.
Then the dreams started again. New images, same technique to communicate across the centuries. The only problem was that this lid they needed hadn’t survived the 20th century. Its last known sighting was in a Prussian museum prior to the Great War. While there were no guarantees that it had been destroyed, or when it had been destroyed, the point remained the same: they had to go back in time again to retrieve the artifact. The Tomorrow People had had to convince the Time Guardians that a short jaunt within their own century was acceptable, a task which proved easier than they had expected. Peter’s grandfather hadn’t forgotten his debts, and he opened the Time Lanes to them on the condition that they do nothing, interact with no one, apart from retrieving the vase.
“This way,” Elizabeth said, flashing the sign that indicated the direction to the Roman artifacts. She turned and led the others down a corridor that, if anything, was darker and creepier than the one they had just been in.
“What are we supposed to do with it when we find it?” Stephen asked. The torch was growing slippery in his hands, either from his nervousness or the muggy air in the building. He swapped it long enough to dry his hands on his trouser legs. The effort didn’t help. The museum’s air was close and quite humid, which explained why all the exhibits were behind sealed glass cases rather than being open as they were in his time with the increasing presence of climate control in public buildings.
“I would presume we’re supposed to follow the directions,” John responded, as if the concept had never occurred to Stephen.
Stephen shot a glower at John’s back that eased when Elizabeth laid a calming hand on his arm.
“I believe what Stephen is asking,” Elizabeth said, “is why do we need new directions on making a time travel device? Shouldn’t the old ones we have be sufficient?”
Stephen relaxed slightly. That had been one of the things he was concerned about, though how Elizabeth had understood that from what he’d said was beyond him. It could be disconcerting how well Elizabeth could read people, a skill that had no doubt lead to her decision to be a teacher in the first place. For a second, he had envisioned the three of them as a strange sort of tour group, Elizabeth the teacher with John and himself as the students. The image of John being brought down to his level mollified him. John only a couple of years older than him, and had only been a Tomorrow Person a few months longer, but he acted like he was everyone’s parent or boss.
“You’re right,” John replied, the stiffness in his back easing at the admission. “I spoke in haste.” He swept his torch around the room as he tried to narrow in on the right display case. The exhibits were labeled, but they were labeled in German, and even the amazing powers of the AE suits the Tomorrow People wore—the All Environment suits that mimicked every kind of clothing and contained all the necessary life support equipment to protect the homo superiors inside from any kind of inimical situation—couldn’t translate writing. “The problem is that while we know more-or-less when Peter is,” John explained, “we don’t know where. The Roman Empire in our time stream was a big enough place. If we overshoot or undershoot our arrival by even a few hundred feet, we could spend the rest of our lives wandering around. And we already know that we won’t have our special powers at all when we’re there.”
Stephen nodded, remembering that helplessness all too well. Gaius—the alien who had used the first disruption in the time stream to retain the discovery of the steam engine and to springboard from that to his ascendency as the first Emperor of a Roman Empire that had encompassed the entire world and that had lasted into what should have been John, Elizabeth, and Stephen’s time—had taken the precautionary measure of planting disruptors around his empire that prevented any interference from either the Tomorrow People or the Galactic Federation.
Elizabeth stopped in front of a display case with pottery similar in style and design to the vase lid for which they were searching. All three of them trained their torches on contents, as if failure to keep them in their sight now that they had been found would allow the artifacts to escape.
“So what do we do now?” Stephen asked. “Break the glass?” He brought the butt of his torch up, fully intending to slam it into the glass, though the resulting crash would no doubt summon every guard in the building. Fortunately, the Hyperspace disruption that prevented them from honing in on the lid’s precise location didn’t block all teleporting. Once they had the vase, they would disappear and no one would ever know what had happened. He felt a touch of guilt at the blame that would fall upon the guard in charge of this room, but this was a case where the bigger picture was more important than whether one person lost his job. If the Time Lanes weren’t protected, who knew what atrocities would befall the planet.
John shook his head. “There’s no need for that.” He retrieved a small disc from his pocket and set it on the top of the case. The matter transporter was about the size of Elizabeth’s palm and looked a little like a white hockey puck. The glass disappeared at a thought from him, allowing him to reach in and pick up the lid, one they recognized easily. It really was the sister to other one, its drawings nearly identical. He held it out and Elizabeth and Stephen reached out at the same time to touch it, feeling a sort of reverence for a work of such beauty that had been created thousands of years before and had survived nearly intact. From Elizabeth, Stephen picked up a pang of regret at its loss, at the loss of all the artworks and artifacts stored in this building that would be destroyed during the war. He opened his mouth to needle her, a quip forming about how you could take the art teacher out of the classroom…
The second their hands touched the vase, they were enveloped in a burst of blinding light. Stephen’s thoughts scattered. His whole body felt discombobulated, like he was on the verge of having his atoms drift apart. This was like no teleport he had ever experienced.
~~~~
The light cleared and the Tomorrow People stepped down from the jaunting pad. No, that wasn’t right. Stephen blinked, trying to gather back his displaced thoughts. The Tomorrow People hadn’t been teleporting; they had been forcibly transported. His feet landed on uneven ground that crumbled beneath his step; he fell forward, grabbing onto Elizabeth’s arm to keep his balance. This wasn’t the Lab. They were outside. As far as he could see was total devastation, broken heaps of masonry and rusted metal that used to be buildings, shattered and ruined roadways, and a pervasive stink of rot. Stephen tugged the collar of his shirt up to cover his nose, in a vain attempt to filter the air. Elizabeth and John each held their arms over their face with similar intent. The vase’s lid had vanished as if the act of transporting them had been enough to destroy it.
[Where are we?] Stephen asked, appealing to his telepathy for the first time. They didn’t normally use that special power when they were standing next to each other—some habits from their pre-breakout days weren’t worth letting go of—but he didn’t want to risk drawing more breath than necessary. The sky was an unbroken slate gray and felt lower than it normally did, like it was pressing in on them. [Did we get teleported to a different planet?]
[You know we can’t teleport off-planet without a power boost from TIM,] John reminded them, though his thoughts didn’t sound nearly as sure as his spoken words would have. TIM, their biotronic computer, hadn’t been consulted in regards to their use of the Time Lanes. He wouldn’t have approved.
[Fine. Did we get transported to a different planet?] Stephen thought, though the clarification didn’t seem necessary to him. They were speaking telepathically; John and Elizabeth knew what he meant.
“You are very much on Earth,” TIM’s voice broke in. The Tomorrow People jumped, turned around slowly. The man before them was tall, standing military straight, and despite sharing his cultured voice and even tones, was definitely not TIM. He wore long red and gold robes that were heavily embroidered and tasseled. A red hat like the Pope’s miter balanced precariously on his head. The outfit completely clashed with the surroundings. He would have to be one of the sixty-four clone brothers that had served as the computer’s basis. Stephen winced; TIM’s disapproval was nothing compared to the problem they now had. The figure took a step toward them. “This is what remains of late 20th century Londinium.” He made a sweeping motion with his arm, taking in the devastation that surrounded them. His disapproval was palpable.
Only now did Stephen start to recognize that there were no signs of life. He’d seen enough ruins in his life, and he knew that when the structures that man built weren’t cared for, they were always quickly consumed under weeds and saplings. While the buildings here had collapsed, nature hadn’t come to reclaim this area. He wondered what had happened, while having a sinking feeling that their recovery of the vase had had something to do with it. Touching it is what had transported them here; he knew that. What he didn’t know was how, why, or what had happened to cause the total destruction of his city.
“I am Tirron Inos Mosta,” the man said, taking another careful step forward among the rubble. He pressed the flats of his palms together in front of him and bowed slightly toward John. When he straightened up, he asked, “Was that a correct greeting? I’ve been attempting to research the customs of Earth, though much knowledge was destroyed in the tenth Romanic wars.”
John replicated the bow, a small smile playing around his lips. His black hair ruffled in a breeze that sprang up from nowhere. Earth’s representatives from the Galactic Federation tried to fit in, and never managed to get the details right. They deserved credit for trying, though, so John never sought to correct their errors. Elizabeth wasn’t quite so polite. She had turned away slightly, obviously repressing a laugh at Tirron’s excessive formality, especially in their current setting. “We are honored to meet you, Your Excellency,” John intoned. “I am John.” He indicated himself, then pointed to Elizabeth and Stephen in turn as he introduced them. They greeted the Ambassador with smaller, more self-conscious, versions of the bow.
“What happened here?” Stephen interjected, before his own laughter could break through. He knew John would be irked at him for not kowtowing, but he didn’t care. One second the Tomorrow People had been in a timeline that was recognizably their own, and the next they weren’t. Stephen’s world of 1975 had its negatives and he knew he could be pretty wrapped up in sport and school and being a Tomorrow Person to be aware of all that was going on, but he was pretty sure he would have noticed the apocalypse.
John’s face darkened, and he shot a look of disapproval at Stephen. “Please forgive my friend,” he said. “He can be impatient.”
Tirron waved off the request. “It is no concern. Your question was anticipated.” He swept his gaze over the landscape, sobering visibly from his pride at demonstrating his knowledge of Earth customs. “The vase you were sent for was a ruse,” Tirron explained.
“I knew it!” Stephen exclaimed.
“Quiet, Stephen,” John admonished. “What do you mean?” he asked, turning back to the Ambassador.
It was the breeze that gave it away. The direction it was blowing meant that Stephen had to keep brushing his longish hair out of his eyes. He raised his hand yet again, and noticed that Tirron’s robes weren’t swaying. [John, Elizabeth,] he sent, trying to project a warning.
“We needed to bring you here,” Tirron replied. “You needed to see what the outcome would be.”
“We?” John asked.
Tirron’s image flickered, like a television signal that was losing its strength. “I am Tirron Inos Mosta,” the Ambassador repeated, pressing the flats of his palms together—
“Get away!” Elizabeth yelled. She was already backing up, her face twisted with surprise and shock. Her hands went toward the jaunting band wrapped around her stomach as she mentally prepared to teleport back.
Tirron’s image vanished. In its place stood the equally tall Gaius, attired in his white woolen tunic and leather sandals that he held as a symbol and reminder of the origins of his power. His smile to them was filled with self-satisfaction. “Did you really think I wouldn’t learn from your young friend?” he said, obviously referring to Peter. “He showed me what to do.” He frowned for a moment. “I thought after the first time you stopped me that you might not be so easy to trick. You really are just children.”
John sputtered. “Why did you bring us here?” he asked.
Gaius shook his head. “To get you out of the way, of course,” he replied. He tapped a band on his wrist, glancing at it quickly as it if were a watch. “And now that you’re here, I’ll be going. I have a universe to conquer.” With that, he vanished, leaving The Tomorrow People alone in the ruins of London, more questions racing through their brains than they could possibly ask.
“I can’t jaunt,” Elizabeth stated. She closed her eyes, concentrating, with her hands on her belt. Nothing happened.
[TIM, jaunt us in,], John ordered. Stephen heard it. Elizabeth heard it. There was no one else to hear it. TIM didn’t exist in this world—which meant they were trapped. Normally, they could teleport under their own power, thought not very far. The math was too complicated. They didn’t have the ability to travel through time on their own at all, and now it seemed they couldn’t teleport either. Stephen felt a chill run down his spine. What was worse: they couldn’t count on any help. Even if Tirron and the Galactic Federation did exist, that didn’t mean they had any interest in Earth’s affairs, especially if the Tomorrow People had never existed in this timeline. Gaius had clearly created the projection in order to keep the Tomorrow People in place, maybe to get them to let their guards down, probably to allow himself a chance to gloat at their expense. Who knew what his reasons were. One of the problems with the Tomorrow People’s innate pacifism is that they didn’t have the ability to understand violence or the reasons anyone might use it.
Stephen looked around at the devastated landscape, and at his friends standing against, the only life for who knew how far in any direction. Gaius had done this. This was supposed to be their home city and their home century, and it wasn’t either. The Tomorrow People were supposed to be Earth’s protectors, no matter what Earth needed protecting from. Yet, with nothing more than a message in a dream, Gaius had won. It was all he could do not to crumble to the ground.
Elizabeth dropped her hands and starred off toward where the horizon should be, her dark skin looking gray from shock and the inadequate sun that diffused through the clouds, that Stephen wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that she’d turned to stone. He rather thought she had the right idea. Then she started to walk forward, her feet kicking up dust with each step. “Let’s go,” she said, when it became clear that the boys had no intention of moving.
“Where to?” John asked. His fingers still rested on his jaunting belt, as if keeping them there would coerce the item into working, despite the fact that it wouldn’t work at all without TIM around.
She rolled her eyes skyward, as if searching for signs of the Galactic Federation behind the clouds. “I don’t know,” she replied. “With as many aliens as have visited this planet, there has to be something here that we can use to get home.”
John was nodding before she finished speaking, and Stephen was already half way to his feet. The spark of hope was enough to get them motivated again. The planet was a wasteland, and there was no telling if humanity still had any purchase on it, but the Tomorrow People had a responsibility to protect it. With this awareness, they set off. Gaius might have won for now, but they had undone his crimes once. Though it might take them awhile, the Tomorrow People would figure out how to set the world and the time lanes back on their correct paths.
END
Fulfills AU Bingo squares #7 (post-apocalypse), #8 (aliens), #12 (early 20th century), #13 (wild card: time travel).