Marauders.
Raiders.
Pillagers.
Machiavellians.
Each of them described themselves differently, letting their imagination and vocabulary run wild. They were probably the world's greatest thieves; the irony was that no one knew that they stole anything. Like how every person has something to hide, maybe a past, or a secret, they too had an undisclosed prized possession, due to which they could abscond undiscovered. Well, if they were caught, history will be re-written.
Their wealth knew no bounds. From the Indian diamonds in Britain to the famous Da Vinci and Michelangelo paintings, their house was filled up to the brim with artefacts from all over the world. The adrenaline rush they got when they succeeded in stealing something was exhilarating and addictive. And, who are they?
Jay, Neil, Lilly and Tara. The Larcenists.
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Lilly walked out of her room, at eight in the morning. She wasn't able to sleep the whole night; she saw an article the previous evening pertaining to some artefacts discovered in Greece. The Parthenon in Athens was an archaic temple built for Goddess Athena, in her honour. The so-called 'temple of the virgin goddess' was a sacrificial area for maidens, which guaranteed the safety of the city. It had been discovered that there were silver coins of astounding value from 434 B.C.
Lilly was the 'gatherer' of the four. It was up to her to keep collecting information and making sure if it was authentic or not. Then, they all would take a vote to decide if going was beneficial or not. She had her connections in all the right places. So she got a lengthy, verbose e-mail saying how the coins had been discovered and they all were made of unadulterated silver.
By the time the others were up, she was extremely fractious. Without further ado, she told them everything and after showing them the mail, she asked them for their opinion. Tara was the nutty one of them all. She was the most easily swayed one too. So, she jumped up saying that they should go. While Neil was ok with it, Jay being the pessimist didn't want to take the risk. He reasoned by saying that the temple would be heavily guarded, especially with the coins in there. But the others wouldn't hear of it. Neil was the 'techie'. He pulled out the blueprints of the monument and started marking the hallways, attic, and treasury from the internet.
Like every other time, they made a plan; when they would start, how many would split up, who would get the coins, who would keep a lookout and the like. By the time they were done, it was around three in the morning. They decided that they should get a day's rest before they steal the coins. Even though they were anxious, they were excited. The prospect of getting caught was always hovering over their heads like a black cloud. But they were confident about themselves and trusted each other without a speck of doubt, after all, they wouldn't be able to pull off most of their heists if not.
A day later, after breakfast, they were ready. Each of them had a backpack with whatever they needed. Neil had safely stowed the blueprint with him, while Tara had packed a lot of food. The others were used to this. She was a foodie and carried something to eat every time they go somewhere. Lilly had stashed a few knives and a gun.
They stood, forming a circle. Jay fumbled with something in his bag. A minute or two later, he got out a royal blue colour box. It resembled the jewellery boxes that we had at home, just more expensive and antique. It was secured with a six digit combination lock. 1-4-1-6-1-6. When Jay had opened the box, there lay a relic curio.
It was a watch. To any onlooker, it would resemble an old pocket watch whose battery needs to be repaired. But, only the four knew what it really was. It was gold in colour, not the gold that we see today, it was not lustrous, just a plain and unpolished gold, which perspicuously has seen better days. The watch looked like it had three parts if you unveiled it; the outer part had an intricate design on it which only added to its antiquity. The anti-penultimate part had the markings of a dial, all in Roman numerals. The crux had the hands, which showed the present time they were in. On the top of the watch, there was a knob with a golden Albert's chain. The chain also had the similar markings as the watch. All in all, the watch was a piece of eye-candy to an antiquarian.
But, it was not any regular watch; it was a time machine that was in Jay's family for centuries. The most surprising thing was that Jay was the first one to realise that it was a time machine. So he probably was the second person in history to time travel, apart from who created it.
The watch worked in a bizarre way. Multiple people could time travel at once, but obviously, conditions apply. They all could go to the same place, hand in hand and they had a specific time limit depending on which era they travelled to.
Neil and Tara, after getting to know about the time machine, were extremely curious to know how it worked. Since 300 B.C, the space-time of our universe was deemed to be emanated from the Euclidean space, which had specifically three dimensions. Later when space travel was reckoned possible, a fourth dimension was discovered, this could be traversed through space-time lapse. To achieve this lapse, many scientists and physicists had tried inventing the time machine; but they failed to do so. The machines they made needed a colossal amount of energy for time travel. When they had successfully created a portal to the past or future, by the theory of conservation of energy, a wormhole was created in another space lattice.
For time travel to be possible in reality, the body that is time travelling has to be projected at a speed equal to the speed of light. When that happens, the specific body has infinite mass quantity with respect to the mass of the earth. The probability of achieving this was extremely low. In order to make it possible, the watch accelerated their velocities, due to which a sphere of heat was formed around them. Once the sphere reached its maximum threshold, the growth of mass around it was not possible. The acceleration of the sphere would stop when it would be equivalent to the speed of light. The mass inside the sphere would be a very infinitesimally small value compared to the mass of the earth, but inside it, the mass would be infinite. Then it as a whole would be projected into a wormhole. But every few millenniums or so, Earth would get sucked into a wormhole. Eras changed, with them the centuries changed, people changed, their styles changed, continents changed. To go back into the previous eras, the wormholes traversed would create a suction power so great that holding on to anything would be very difficult. Each era had its own gravitational pull. They get pulled by a copious number of gravities. The different eras were clearly visible. They passed the time when women wore corsets and long dresses, the time when India was under the British rule, the French revolution along with the German and Russian, back to the time where India was not discovered by outsiders, even further to the days when Aryabhatta lived. Jay pressed the button when he saw the period of Gods and Goddesses in Athens.
The last attempt at making a time machine was done by Jay's ancestor, Jacob Ray Hawkins. He made this time machine in such a way that they could travel in time through all the wormholes that had been induced during the past time travel experiments. So when they selected a specific time era, they would be projected into the wormhole nearest to it. To materialise into the era they chose, the knob should be pulled to its original position.
The six digit lock on the box had its own story. That was the date when Jacob had successfully used the watch to travel back into time. The main purpose of it was to spend more time with his deceased wife, who died a year after their marriage. He never disclosed what it was to anyone because time travel during his life was a heresy. No one talked about it after the failed experiments. Not even his kids knew about it. After him, Jay was the one who had been successful in using it.
If returning to their era was easy, they would have been unstoppable. Sadly, that was not the case. To return, they had time until the hands of the watch completed a whole revolution; how fast it would tick depended upon the spatial positions of the time they visited. The greater the time they travel into the past, the lesser time they get to stay there.
They gravitated towards it due to the pull of the era on the watch. They appeared in one of the alleys with a front row view of the Parthenon. Its grandeur was alluring and astounding even. The Pentelic marble it was made of shone brightly in the moonlight. The limestone columns gave it a slight dull shade. Overall, it had an ostentatious look.
They made their way out of the back street onto the main street which was bustling with people, after they untie the rope. They got many weird glances from the passer-bys due to their clothes. The women wore tunics while the men proudly wore a kilt. The children, who were running around wore skirts or shorts depending on their gender while the four casually wore jeans.
As they made their way towards the magnificent building, the people around them looked at them warily. Not wanting to capture the attention of more number of people, they hurried into the building. The guards eyed them suspiciously. As they made their way towards the treasury where the coins were treasured and guarded; they split up and Tara left to keep a lookout.
Lilly, Jay, and Neil stealthily crept towards the treasury. But to get to it, they had to cross the main part of the temple, where guards were stationed throughout. Though there were people in the temple, they looked the most conspicuous. Using the six feet wide pillars to their benefit, they crept through the large hall sneakily. They were almost near the door of the treasury when they heard Tara give them the signal saying that they were in danger.
They turned around quickly to backtrack, but they found themselves surrounded. Unable to accept defeat so soon, Jay tries to fight off the guard who captures him. The guard was burly and robust and Jay looked like a Lilliput in front of him. He throws Jay off him and slams him into the nearest pillar. Lilly cries out pleading the guard not to hit Jay. Turning a deaf ear to her cries, he swiftly punches Jay twice in the face and kicks him in the gut. Realising that he was completely powerless, he gives up. The guard smirked sinisterly in victory and punches Jay again knocking him out.
After seizing their bags from their possession, the guards all but dragged them, to a place unknown to them, their swords making clanking noises against their metal kilts. They pass through the hallway, Jay's blood littering the floor. They come to a doorway, one of the guards stationed there opens it to reveal stairs which lead to the sacrificial area. As they began to descend the stairs, the light from the hallway became dim and eventually, they could see nothing. They kept going down for what felt like aeons. Later the guards holding them pulled them roughly when they stumbled down the rest of the stairs only to faceplant on the ground.
Suddenly, they heard someone lighting a match. The source of illumination was a small oil lamp. When they slowly got up, they were forcibly chained up to a wall, their hands stretched to the maximum limit by shackles and legs with heavy iron cuffs. When they left, they took the lamp with them leaving the prisoners in pitch darkness. Lilly questioned Neil about what would happen to them. He cleverly said that he cannot predict the outcome, not wanting to scare her. Though they couldn't see each other, they took comfort in each other's shallow breath. Lilly tried to reach for her knife but fails to do so. After many tries, she realises that the shackles were too heavy for her.
With a resigned sigh, she said she was glad that at least Tara got out unharmed. Neil quietly agreed. He called out Jay's name hoping that he was alright. He tried to reach out to feel if anything was in front of him, but no avail.
Later when a few minutes began to turn into hours, not that they would know what the time was, they heard distinct footsteps of a person. They waited anxiously for the person to come down. As the person reached the chamber, they held their breath and you could hear the pin drop silence. A lighter click sounded and a flame lit up to show that the person who came down was Tara. Releasing a deep breath reassured, Lilly and Neil were overjoyed that she didn't abandon them.
Tara quickly undid the shackles and frees Neil. She quickly said that the guards had left for the daily prayer. She informed Neil that their bags were dumped in the treasury and instructed him to get them while she freed Lilly and Jay. Neil rushed while Tara undid Lilly who gave her a tight hug saying that she was glad Tara didn't abscond when she had the chance to. Tara reminded her that the only way anyone of them could return was along with all the people who had accompanied them.
They quickly freed Jay who was still unconscious. Taking out the water bottle from her bag, Tara quickly proceeded to clean Jay's wounds and wrapping gauze where needed. She checked her watch to see that they had only a few more minutes left before which the watch would complete one revolution and the guards would also return soon.
Both the girls lifted Jay, carefully balancing him between them and made their way up the stairs. They were completely out of breath by the time they reached the top. But, seeing that time was ticking faster than they were walking gave them a boost of energy. Cautiously, they made their way towards the treasury, watching out for the guards. As they reached the treasury, they let out a relieved sigh. Neil held the door open for them to slip in. He held the watch which would complete one revolution within twenty seconds when they heard shouts from outside. Panicking, they started counting down the seconds, with bated breath.
Five. The shouts got louder.
Four. They sounded right outside the door.
Three. The door opened.
Two. One of the guards lunged for them.
One. Lilly reached out and pulled the guard's sword out of its scabbard, braced herself, ready to attack.
Zero. The suction of the sphere produced again pulled them into a soulless wormhole. They tried to hold on to each other with iron grips, knowing that if they let go, they would disappear in the space-time lapse. Neil, with utmost precision, manoeuvred them into their time period. Slowly, they felt the suction pull of the lapse decrease and seeing the familiar surroundings of their condo, they fell into a heap on the comfortable sofas.
Everyone was quite shaken from the time travel and the exertion. Lilly sighed, lamenting that all they got by going there was nothing but a few bruises and a weird looking sword. Tara chuckled saying that she could add it to her sword collection.
Jay just sighed and said that he was glad to get out alive. Neil looked at them, a confused expression on his face and asked what they were talking about. The other three glared at him, ready to give him an earful. But Neil just looked at them smiling like a Cheshire cat and pulled a sack of jingling coins which were behind the sofa.
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©Copyright Madhu Nimeshika
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