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.
"It may turn out that you have little choice in the matter," my roommate observed. "Don't forget to pack the ansible", she added, with a quick glance at my bag. "I don't know when or if ever we will return to St. Albert's."
"That's a good point," I agreed. "Thanks for reminding me." I sighed. "Sara will be furious when she learns that I did not consult her about this."
Natty shrugged. "Sara made it clear that she was not prepared to consider my transfer to the 23rd century. Not even to save my life."
She sounded bitter, I thought.
"That was before that hearing before the committee, though," I amended.
Once again, my roommate shrugged. "Whatever. We agreed that waiting for them to come to a decision is not an option for me, at this point."
She was right, of course.
I retrieved the ansible from where it was hidden underneath a pile of socks and underwear and added it to the contents of my bag.
Five minutes later we boarded a bus to Arlesten. We took care to sit in the back of the bus and to act as inconspicuous as possible.
Upon our arrival at Arlesten, we got off the bus and made for the train station. We had already negotiated two thirds of the distance when suddenly something occurred to me. I stopped in my tracks, which made Natty stop too.
"What is it?" she asked.
"By now, they must have realized that we have run away, right?"
"Sure." Natty shrugged. "The way I figure it, when Ms Jefferson and the head didn't find us with the others at the cafeteria, they went to check our room. They must know that we are gone."
"Yes, but don't you think they are going to try and stop us?"
"Stop us how?"
"They know that last time you ran off to London your classmates and I took a train from Arlesten to London to look for you. So I'd expect them to have the police check all passengers of trains bound to London, and also to patrol the Arlesten train station."
"Drat," Natty muttered. "Why didn't I think of that?"
"I thought of it only just now," I said. "But I am almost certain that that's what they are going to do."
"In that case, we'll have to hitchhike to get to London," my roommate announced.
"Hitchhike? How?"
"Oh, it's easy. You stand on the side of the road, stick out your thumb and wait for drivers willing to take you to London," Natty explained.
"Uh huh." I had no idea if or how this was going to work, so I decided I would just have to trust her in this.
We turned around and started to walk back to the city center. As we approached the main plaza where the tourists assembled, we noticed a police car cruising at low speed. We ducked behind a row of huge potted plants that lined the front of one of the restaurants.
"Do you think they are already looking for us?" I whispered.
"I don't know." Natty shrugged. "Could be, though."
We waited until the police car had disappeared down a side street.
Something else occurred to me then.
"You know, let's not attempt to hitchhike just now," I proposed. "I've got a different idea. Why don't we go and check if we can find Jake at his usual place in that small cafe? I bet he would be willing to drive us to London if he has got the time."
"Sounds good," Natty agreed.
As luck would have it, we found Jake Ferguson almost immediately, sitting at his usual place.
He waved for us to join him at a small outside table. "Catherine, Natalie! How are you doing?"
"Hush!" Natty whispered as we sat down next to him. "We are on the run."
Initially Jake looked amused, but he quickly turned serious after we told him what had transpired earlier today.
"That's exactly what I feared would happen," he told us. "In fact, you may consider yourself lucky to have gotten out of that situation alive, Natalie. So have you already decided where you want to go? We talked about that a couple of weeks ago, didn't we?"
"Yes, we did. Natty has decided to go to London and lie low for a few weeks or maybe months. She knows people she can trust, there," I told him.
"We were kind of wondering if you would be willing to drive us to London in your car," Natty added.
"I think that hiding in London would be a good idea," Jake agreed, "and I will be happy to drive you. Tomorrow, that is. You can spend the night here at my place, if you don't mind sharing a a small but luxurious single-room apartment with me."
We assured him that no, we wouldn't mind, not at all.
Although Jake's apartment consisted only of one room, it had all the amenities one could reasonably expect from such a place, including a small kitchen and even a tiny shower enclosure.
That night he let us sleep on the bed while he himself lay down on an inflatable mattress on the floor.
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