It was really cool to meet Atlanta in Manchester the other day. I’m so glad I got her number, not like when I met Alex and I had to hatch some elaborate plan to go to Scotland to try to meet up with him again. It helped that I met her in a 21st century museum, and not a medieval prison!
If you’re wondering what I’m talking about…
https://travellingthroughtimeispossible.wordpress.com/2012/05/16/rescueing-alex-mclean/
Anyway, me and Atlanta have been texting and emailing loads. She says she’s well jealous of all the adventures I’ve been on (she’s been reading my blog too), but she’s been up to some pretty cool stuff as well!
Apparently, as soon as I fixed her phone, SHARP were able to get back in contact and sent her on an awesome time travelling mission. She went through the usual protocols and found herself plunged into total darkness – and not like the darkness you get now, with a tinge of orange street light covering everything – darkness in the past is so black and inky, you can’t see anything at all. It turns out she’d landed in a dorm-room full of sleeping girls. It wasn’t long before an older woman came in and woke everyone up, and it wasn’t even light outside! She soon discovered she was at a kind of workhouse place, but in the country, where young orphans had to work long hours in a factory. And the kids were sickly and skinny – that’s the weirdest thing you notice when you go back a few hundred years. The kids are so much smaller and younger for their age than they are now – I usually pass for a 16/17-year-old, I mean I was a soldier in World War 1 (briefly) and no one even batted an eyelid! She even met a poor boy who’s hand was missing – and she found out why… she had to work in a factory where kids had to put their hands inside the machines to unravel cotton threads that got tangled – talk about dangerous!
While she was there, she met a girl called Esther. Esther had a plan to run away, and I guess that’s why Atlanta was sent back, to help her. You see, we always end up doing something to help people – to make life better – and I guess that creates positive energy, which is what SHARP is trying to harness and prevent some kind of apocalypse in the future. Atlanta understood Esther’s need to get away, she couldn’t even cope with working one day there – with the noise of the mill, the porridge and the machines that chopped fingers off!
Atlanta could barely keep up with Esther as she followed her over the fields and away from the mil, puffing and smoking in the background. The plan was to find a random barn to sleep in overnight and then try to sneak on a train heading into Manchester from there. It was clear this Esther girl had no clue what she was going to do next, but she didn’t care, she’d got away from the prison of the factory. And then Atlanta’s phone starting buzzing her, giving her the cue to return to the present, but when she pulled it out she got a that awful surprise that makes your stomach lurch…
(this is what your phone looks like when you get a message from the future):
<endrant command>
Boson field stability 36% and falling
Quantum lock disengaged
### system error ###
The screen filled with gibberish and meaningless symbols. Now Atlanta began frantically pressing every button. No response. She could hear the whining sound that came with every trip back in time, but it sounded different. It was always a high C note, but now it was wobbling, up and down like a siren. It grew louder and louder until it filled Atlanta’s head.
Then… Nothing.
Atlanta opened her eyes and her heart sank; this wasn’t her house! They had not got her back home. She was still outside, in the country, but now it was daylight. She was standing by a cobbled lane. A stone signpost poked out from the bottom of a bramble hedge, claiming Derby was forty miles in the direction of the hill. Atlanta was really scared now. She was alone and lost, with no idea where, or when! Suddenly, she heard whistling coming from up the hill. She quickly tucked the phone back inside her clothes. When she saw Esther’s yellow mop of hair coming towards her, Atlanta had to resist the urge to run over and give her a hug.
“I got some apples from that wagon,” said Esther, as if carrying on a conversation that Atlanta had missed, “And a few crusts of bread.”
Atlanta looked at her friend. If she had been dirty and scruffy back at the mill, she was even worse now. Her dress was streaked with mud, her skin was even paler than before and her eyes had lost some of their cheeky sparkle. It must mean that she had been pulled forwards in time, but for how long? A few hours? A day? Or more?
They kept walking for a while and then the sound came again. Atlanta cautiously opened her eyes a second time. Darkness. Complete and total darkness. She swayed unsteadily; the repeated trips through time were leaving her dizzy. For a moment, she feared that she had been pulled out of time and space and left in some empty void, but she refused to panic.
She soon detected the smell of porridge and realized it was worse than ever; she was back at the factory! When her phone went again, she didn’t even bother keeping it secret. She pulled it right out in front of her fellow factory workers; she could already hear the distant high-pitched ringing in her ears as she read yet another error message:
<remote system reboot>
Code operative 15799 located
Emergency retrieval plan initiated…
Attempting subspace contact>>
Atlanta’s heart soared. She didn’t understand the technical words but the intention was clear: Mela had found her and was going to get her home.
The screen cleared and another message appeared.
Atlanta,
We had to scan each time quadrant to pin you down.
First of all – don’t panic! I’m coming to get you. We need to pull you to new coordinates where we can extract you. Enter your code to confirm you are OK and we’ll get you out.
Atlanta quickly keyed in her code and pressed the green button. Almost immediately the phone buzzed three times, one after another, and the high-pitched whining sound rushed in around her. Atlanta curled into a ball, closed her eyes, and hoped that nothing would go wrong this time.
The noise built to fever pitch and then, once again… Nothing.
But she wasn’t home yet; she’d been pulled forward in time – to 1863!
Time Travel is Possible! 