Temporal Exploring 101 - Deep Future

IV.39 Girls on the run

As my classmates made their way towards our school's cafeteria, talking excitedly about what just had happened, I saw Natty take a sharp turn to the left, heading in the direction of our dorm. I fell in step beside her.

"What are you doing?" I asked her, a bit breathlessly, "We were supposed to stay together with the others and wait for Ms Jefferson and the headmistress, weren't we?"

"Well, I don't intend to wait for them," Natty told me.

"Could you at least enlighten me as to where we are going?"

"To our dorm room, of course." She shrugged. "Where else would you have us go?"

"But ..." I broke off as we stepped into our room.

Natty walked to the closet. She took out two or three changes of socks and underwear and stuffed them into her bag.

"What are you doing?" I sheepishly repeated.

"Isn't it obvious? I am leaving," she declared. "You saw what happened, didn't you? They have come for me, just like Jake said they would. He told us that quote, even the most unsupervised cleanup crew was eventually going to perform one final check to determine if the objective of their original mission had been accomplished, unquote."

She added a clean shirt as well as a skirt and trousers.

"So that's what they did, and guess what? They found that I am still alive. A mistake that they are about to correct. If not for Jefferson's obstinate courage and Mallory's criminal genius, I would be dead at this point."

"But you are not dead," I pointed out. "So, let's calm down for a moment and think. Are you sure you want to run?"

"Am I sure? Of course I am sure!" Natty did not sound hysterical or anything, just extremely determined. She turned around to look me in the eye. "Do you think anybody at this school can protect me if those two 'agents' or some thugs hired by them decide to just come here and shoot me, the next time around?  Seriously, Cathy: given everything we know, would you propose that I stay here, even for just one more day? Or, for that matter, for one more hour?"

"No, of course not. There is a possibility that my people could transfer you to the 23rd century to save you, though."

"A possibility? Does that mean if you call them on the ansible now I may transit to the 23rd century within say, a few hours?"

I sighed. "I doubt that. They would have to discuss this course of action with the authorities and obtain the agreement of the ethics committee and all that first."

"Well, waiting for that is not an option, then. Sorry, but I am running, Cathy."

"Alright, I see your point. But this time I am coming with you." I opened my bag and proceeded to cram socks and underwear into it. "So, have you already decided where you want to go?"

"We talked about that. I am going to London and hide there. Clyde and his gang will help me. Or help us." She smiled. "Are you sure you want to accompany me, Cathy?"

"Sure I am sure." I grinned. "What am I supposed to do without you at some crummy 1960s' boarding school?"

"Sara and Mira would probably agree that by now you have successfully completed your First Temporal Assignment. You'd be free to go home, to return to the 23rd century."

Natty sounded more than a bit wistful as she mentioned the 23rd century.

"But I don't really want to return to the 23rd century without you," I objected.