All the other passengers, on board the old steam train, had found seats in other compartments so the trio didn't have to dissuade anyone trying to join them. The only person who did pop in was a female conductor with a strong Liverpudlian accent. Her uniform was clearly designed for a man and not someone curved as she was. Ellen wondered whether the woman could only take shallow breaths in fear of popping a button from her jacket.
'Hello my dears,' she said, with a smile as she waltzed into the compartment and sliding the door halfway behind her. 'Have you already got tickets?'
The three teenagers rummaged around in handbags and pockets to retrieve their ten trip passes.
'My brother's also with us and he has one of these as well,' said Marianne.
'Oh yes. I saw a young lad, yay height, further along the corridor with a gentleman. Yes I've already punched his ticket so don't you worry. Are you going to the end of the line today ... to London or getting off earlier?'
'London. Yes,' said Marianne.
The conductor looked up at the solitary item of luggage on the rack above their heads.
'My, you're travelling light. I guess you won't be staying long?' she chortled. 'Then again London is not really the safest place to be at this time. Have you got somewhere lined up to board?'
'Oh no, we're not visiting,' said Marianne. 'We're heading for the Wrens' training camp. I'm joining up.'
'And me,' added Ellen, whilst Marianne sat with a bemused look on her face. 'We're cousins and wanted to enlist together.'
'And the fellas have come to see you off? That's nice,' said the woman. 'I admire you both. It's a valuable thing you're doing. If I were younger I'd probably do the same myself. Beats this job. Still it won't be for long. I'm standing in for my Bertie while he's away fighting.'
Ellen suddenly had an idea and realised that the conductor might be able to help, so didn't waste any time taking that opportunity.
'I hope you don't mind me asking, but you wouldn't happen to know the whereabouts of the Wrens' base in London?'
This baffled the conductor.
'You're going all the way to London to join the Wrens and you don't know where they're based? I would have thought they'd have sent you a letter with their address on it.'
'They did,' lied Ellen. 'This is going to make us sound stupid, but we did both get letters. Only we agreed that I'd be the one to bring mine and in all the panic this morning to catch the train I left it on the sideboard. I'm so foolish and I bet Mum is at home now holding the letter thinking the same about me.'
The look on the conductor's face made Ellen squirm a little as she couldn't tell if it was suspicion, sympathy or discomfort from tight-fitting clothing.
'And you don't remember anything about the address, other than it being in London?'
Ellen did not reply but gave a wince and a shoulder shrug, reiterating how stupid she felt. The conductor looked at Marianne who mimicked Ellen with a similar silent gesture.
'I'm not that familiar with London, but the driver knows it like the back of his hand. So when we next have a lengthy stop at a station I'll ask him if he knows.'
'If you don't mind that would be very kind of you,' said an extremely grateful Marianne, politely.
The woman gave them all a jolly smile and slid back the door. They waited for her to leave the compartment and closed the door again before they spoke.
'What made you say you were joining the Wrens?' Marianne enquired of Ellen.
'I don't know, I panicked I guess,' replied Ellen. 'I realised that she wasn't simply going to be content with punching our tickets and leaving, she clearly was going to have a bit more of a chat and I was worried we'd get tied up in knots and give something away.'
'Really?' asked Aaron.
'I was worried she might ask awkward questions that we hadn't planned for and would stumble over. It dawned on me that it might look odd to her if Marianne was the only one joining the Wrens that she'd need four other people accompanying her. That is a bit much. Plus as I'm a similar age then why would I travel down to London yet not join up as well? I hope you don't mind, Marianne? I mean I know I'm not really joining up, but even so.'
Marianne smiled.
'No I don't mind. In fact it was extremely clever of you to think and say that. I think you're right we would have given something away. We haven't had that much practice with strangers yet. Have we? Anyway I quite like the idea of joining the Wrens with you. It's a shame that we won't. It was also a great opportunity to find out where their base is. Hopefully she'll find out for us.'
The door slid open and closed once more as Brook and a relaxed-looking Billy returned to the compartment.
'All ok?' asked Marianne.
'Fine,' her brother replied. 'We didn't see them on board, thank goodness. Although I did think I saw the guy that grabbed you Ellen. The one with the ginger beard. What was he called again?'
'I think Victor called him Sebastien,' replied Aaron.
'That's it. I knew it started with an S,' Billy said. 'It wasn't him. Luckily. Still it sent the fear of God through me.'
Billy sat down next to Marianne and she gave him a reassuring hug.
~
'So,' said Brook. 'I guess you've got a few questions for me?'
Aaron jumped in without hesitation.
'How is this possible? I mean the ability to time travel?'
'Why us?' asked Ellen.
Billy reiterated his worry.
'Why are there strange men after them? Are they after me and Marianne as well? They did grab Marianne you know.'
'What has 1941 got to do with any of this? Why did we travel back to now?' continued Ellen.
'Will we time travel again? Any time we want ... at will?' asked Aaron.
'Will we get home?' begged Ellen.
Brook was bombarded with further questions from all four of the teenagers, but understandably the majority came from Ellen and Aaron.
'It's a good job London is so far away,' she said. 'Otherwise we'd never get through all of those.'
'Fine, but can you start with telling us about the time travelling,' asked Aaron.
'Okay. That's where it all starts anyway,' responded Brook.
'Throughout the majority of the twenty-first century terrorism was the biggest threat to the people of the world. Over the decades the number of terrorists and their attacks ebbed and flowed, but their presence was always felt. Then somewhere between 2060 and 2070 they, the terrorists, came up with a different plan of attack. They cut back on brutally killing hostages or sending suicide bombers to significant places and instead they found something that affected many more people. They cultivated viruses, with genetic defects, to use as a form of germ warfare. Essentially they infected innocent civilians. Leaving them to become very ill and in some cases die. If they didn't, they passed on genetic defects to their unborn off-spring.'
'Oh my God,' gasped Ellen. 'That's horrible.'
'It certainly was,' agreed Brook. 'The problem was it caught the world by surprise. For those people who hadn't become ill or died it was assumed that the viruses hadn't taken effect, but they had. It wasn't discovered until later that they realised their children were carrying some genetic disorder that caused abnormalities. By the time the leading authorities of the super powers became aware, it was too late. There was little they could do to change what had happened.'
'Oh my, the future sounds frightful,' declared Marianne.
'Don't get me wrong. All that the terrorists did was terrible, but it was not all-consuming. Largely life in the future was great ... is great. It is so much better and easier than either of your two periods of history. However, as is always the case, there was a shadow ... and that just happened to be terrorism.'
'You said the super powers found out too late and couldn't change what happened, so is that where time travel comes in ... came in?' asked an eager Aaron.
'Very perceptive. Yes,' said Brook. 'Or rather it was what caused the research to begin. The government put together a task force ... a think tank ... to come up with ideas for preventing and correcting these awful infections. Their decision after much debate was to create a new and secret department called the ITR. Sorry, the Institute for Temporal Research. Apparently some leading quantum and genetic scientists had been theorising on the topic for the previous few decades and suggested that with substantial funding and government backing they might be able to make reality of the theory. This was all in 2106 and as I said it was all very hush-hush. It took a number of years for them to actually achieve their goal and a good number of tightly-controlled scientists were involved.'
'You're losing me a little,' admitted Marianne. 'Are you saying that time travel was invented by the government to stop bad people from infecting good people with horrid germs?'
'Almost,' replied Brook. 'It wasn't to stop the terrorists. Although they did consider that and they did want to tackle that. You know, catching the terrorists just before the point they infected people. No the main aim was to inject the infected people with various vaccines and antidotes that the bio-chemists, who also worked for the institute, were developing. Their aim was to develop a formula that might work, go back in time, inject a parent-to-be, and monitor how well the solution worked. If it didn't neutralise the original virus then they would tweak the formula and repeat the cycle all over again. Obviously with the power of time travel they could do this over and over again, until they succeeded. On paper it was a clever idea. All of this study was completed under a secret project, that only the top brass in the country were privy to, and of course, those of us who worked on the project. They called it Project skullSTAR and it was dissected into different phases and teams. Each team was simply known by a colour, so the white team was -'
'Hang on ... rewind!' spluttered a surprised Aaron, almost not believing what he was hearing. 'Skull star? Project Skull Star? That is what you said. Right?'
'Yes,' replied Brook. 'I realise it sounds a little odd, but -'
Before she could finish Aaron had jumped to his feet, climbed up onto the bench opposite, where the other three were sitting and grabbed for the suitcase. Ellen realised what had excited her brother and could only watch as he pulled the brown case to the floor, opened it and started rummaging through their twenty-first century clothing.
'Look! Look!' he cried, holding up Ellen's hoodie to Brook.
Up until now, Brook had been super confident and a bit of a know-it-all regarding anything from almost any time period and yet the sight of this item of clothing had left her dumb-struck. Marianne thought it a refreshing change.
'What! What is this ... where did you get this from?' she demanded in disbelief.
'This is it,' said Aaron. 'This is it. Isn't it? The skull star.'
'Yes. But how?'
'It's Ellen's hoodie. I designed it and had it printed ... for her birthday.'
'But ... but ... that's the project logo,' she said. 'It's on all of our documentation, screens, systems ... you name it. I don't understand how you have it.'
'Neither do I,' said Aaron. 'This is just WILD!'
Copyright © Dean Constable 2016