10 April 2037
“This is it! Today we’ll make history. By remaking it.”
The control room burst into a flurry of crisp white lab coats as Institute scientists enthusiastically broke from the huddle around their dear leader and rushed to finish preparations for their historic undertaking. The air was electric, buzzing with the businesslike babble of engineers and the hum of charging capacitors.
It was all too much for David. A simple history teacher in a sea of brilliant technical minds. He extracted himself from the fray and slunk into the comfort of the background.
He was drawn to the yellow-tinted window at the front of the control room and stared out into the Time Machine’s enormous spherical cavern, watching as a crane lowered a large steel ball into position.
The final precious piece.
One of David’s students sat cramped within the reinforced pod. Matilda. Teaching her had been the highlight of David’s career. She was wise beyond her twenty-two years and the bravest person David had ever met. But she was about to leave them all behind. Forever.
She was Chronomad One. The first time traveller.
Humanity’s greatest scientific achievement – a technologically plausible theory of time travel – had been discovered in the ashes of its most devastating calamity.
The Long Day.
Memories of the carnage flashed through David’s mind. Colourful auroras streaming across the sky. Blank phones. Empty plates. Long forgotten illnesses. Violent gangs roaming a lawless land. With a shake of his head, he forced himself back to the present.
Civilisation was mostly restored and, if Matilda’s journey to the past succeeded, another version of humanity would never need to experience its greatest tragedy.
David recognised a distinct voice amongst the control room chaos and turned to watch his childhood friend, the most brilliant physicist of the age, darting around to confirm that everything remained in place. The Institute’s tireless leader caught David’s gaze and angled towards the yellow window.
“The capacitors are almost charged and the vacuum is nearly ready,” Sam updated upon arrival. “Let’s see if this was all worth it.”
“You’re sure you got your calculations right?” David jibed.
Sam elbowed David in the ribs. “Of course they’re correct! They wouldn’t hand over the money if this wasn’t up to scratch. Are you absolutely sure she’s the right one to send first?”
Sam’s playful riposte hit a nerve. David had grappled with the question for years.
Matilda was only one of a cohort of budding time travellers. Chronomads as Sam had taken to calling them.
As headmaster of the Institute for Temporal Relocation, David had identified fertile periods of history – times of social or scientific growth preceding great upheaval – and trained his students in everything they might need to journey back to each specific period. Science and medicine. Economics and politics. Even ancient languages and music.
The Chronomads were Jacks and Jills of all trades and each was tasked with imparting their knowledge on the past to kickstart an early Renaissance in their new timeline. All in the hope that some future civilisation might be sufficiently advanced to defend against the inevitable Long Day.
Institute scientists had lobbied for Matilda to be Chronomad One, arguing that the relative spatial and temporal proximity of her planned destination – medieval England – would be the simplest to tune with their fledgling Time Machine. But with wormhole technology in its infancy, only a small portal could be opened. For a split second. Just long enough to send Matilda back to the past. Alone. And without another enormous Time Machine waiting for her in the past, there could be no contact and Matilda’s return was impossible.
David had performed the ethical gymnastics required to justify exiling someone from existence but still had reservations about sending a lone woman into the past. He campaigned to postpone until Sam’s wormhole technology matured enough to send two‑person teams but a headmaster’s authority wasn’t enough. His concerns had been overruled and the scientists got their way.
“She’ll do just fine,” David replied to Sam, also reassuring himself. “She’s the most pragmatic of my students and beat all of our tests. Provided she had her textbook.”
Sam shrugged. “I hope so. Give me nuts and bolts any day. There’s a right and wrong answer with this technical stuff. It’s black and white. Too many shades of grey when you throw in the human element. You can keep that.”
The control room’s productive atmosphere shattered as the door burst open and the Institute’s flamboyant spokesman entered, inanely nattering away. Matilda’s distraught family trailed behind him, fresh from their final farewell. The mother gripped her young son’s hand, her eyes red and puffy.
“This man is an utter idiot,” David hissed to Sam as he left to intercept the spokesman. “No tact at all. These people are about to lose their daughter!”
David marched over to the family and gave them a consoling smile. “Welcome, Sullivan family. I trust that Matilda appreciated your company as they loaded her into the pod?”
Matilda’s father gave a curt nod as his wife wiped her eyes. David had longed to say his own final farewell but respected the family’s need for privacy in those precious final minutes.
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He brusquely dismissed the spokesman, noting the family’s visible relief as the man left to prepare for the post‑Drop press conference. Hoping to provide a distraction, David crouched to the level of Matilda’s younger brother.
“Hi Richie. Have they shown you how this all works?”
The boy nodded.
“Tell me,” David nudged, gesturing at the giant machine.
The boy led David to the viewing pane and pointed out the Time Machine’s key features, leaving Matilda’s parents to their mournful embrace.
“Tilly’s going back to help the King,” Richie said matter-of-factly, “to teach him medicine. And science. That laser will make a door to the past but after it closes, it can’t ever open again.”
Richie continued, impressing David with the level of technical detail he understood about the process. Only eight or nine, he was well advanced for his age. Just like his sister.
“And that ball just above the centre is…where Tilly is,” Richie said finally with an involuntary sob.
David gave the boy’s shoulder a consoling squeeze and returned him to his mother. An engineer announced that the capacitors were fully charged as they walked across the room.
Not long now.
David withdrew an analogue radio from his pocket, a rare piece of technology since the Long Day. “We’ve got enough time for one final farewell.”
Phone conversations always felt impersonal, never as good as the real thing, but Matilda’s mother beamed with unbridled excitement as David switched on the radio.
“Matilda? Are you there? It’s David. Can you hear us?”
The line went to static before the first distorted words came through the speaker.
“David?” came Matilda’s distorted voice. “Can you hear me?”
“We sure can,” David replied with a grin as Matilda’s family lit up with joy. “I’ve got your family here and they’d love to speak with you.”
David handed the radio to Matilda’s mother, showing her how to use the archaic device.
“Tilly? Tilly? How are you doing in there? How are you feeling?”
Static.
“I’m alright Mum. I didn’t know if David’s surprise would work.”
Matilda’s mother fought to hold back tears and savoured her daughter’s final words.
Sensing her mother’s mood, Matilda continued. “It’s so surreal. I’m torn between excitement at doing the thing I’ve worked so hard for and the impossible sadness of saying goodbye to all of you. It feels like only yesterday that I was bouncing around home in my Institute uniform, begging to leave for the new school.”
Matilda’s mother nodded furiously but silently broke down and handed the receiver to her husband.
“Always the excited one, Til. I’ve never seen a twelve‑year‑old so eager for homework. Channel that enthusiasm when you reach the other side. You’ve put in a decade of hard work and we’re all so proud. Words can’t describe how much we’ll all miss you but it’s reassuring to know you’ll be out there saving the world. I’m still hoping your colleagues might work some of their science magic to find you again.”
Matilda started to reply but gave a sob, followed by a long static. David sometimes forgot, with all Matilda’s brilliance, that she was still just a young girl forced to say farewell to her family forever.
“Thanks Dad,” she eventually croaked. “I love you all so much! And hey, the Institute has some really clever people so who knows? Perhaps Richie could figure it out, he’s smarter than me by far.”
Little Richie’s chest swelled at his sister’s words and he snatched the radio from his father. “I’ll do it for you Tilly! Maybe if I can get the photoms to travel faster..?”
Static, as Richie dropped the receiver in his excitement.
Matilda’s strained laugh carried through the radio. “Faster photons would definitely do it, we’ll be talking again in no time.”
Short static.
“Hey Richie?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you promise to look after Mum and Dad for me? You’re the only fun one still at home so make sure they don’t get too boring. And try to eat all your vegetables. But mostly look after Mum and Dad.”
“I promise Tilly,” Richie replied solemnly. “Even the mushrooms.”
An engineer at the back of the room announced that ideal vacuum had been achieved. It was time.
“Sorry,” David interjected as gently as possible. “We need to start the final stage of the process. Can you please say your goodbyes?”
David stepped away to give the family some semblance of privacy for their final moments, holding back until Sam shot a particularly stern look. He moved in to take the receiver from Matilda’s grateful but distraught father.
“Hey, Matilda?”
“Hi David.” Matilda sounded understandably flat.
“I know you’re tired of hearing it but we really are proud of you. You’re doing something truly amazing today. You’ll be in every history book and spoken of in every household. I promise.”
“I’ll totally hold you to that,” Matilda replied sarcastically.
Static.
“You go and change the world,” David said. “We’ll all be thinking of you.”
Static.
“David? I know it’s not your job. But. Could you look after my family for me? You know, just check in on them every now and then?”
David smiled. “That was always a given Matilda. You have my word.”
“Thanks, so much,” Matilda choked. “For everything. You’ve been so much more than a teacher. For all of us.”
“It’s been an honour.” David paused. “Matilda, we really have to say goodbye now. The vein on Sam’s head is about to burst.”
“Ok. Thanks again David.”
“Goodbye Matilda. Good luck.”
There was a final click as David turned off the radio. He gave the all clear but Sam was already barking orders. There was a final flurry of activity and then, all of a sudden, the room was silent. Tense.
David heard his heartbeat in his ears.
An engineer started the countdown. “Portal in 20.”
David walked back towards the viewing pane and stood beside Matilda’s family.
“Ten.”
A red light began to flash in the control room.
“Nine.”
Matilda’s mother wept silently into her husband’s shoulder.
“Eight.”
The cavern lights went out. A single spotlight illuminated Matilda’s pod.
“Seven.”
Sam joined David by the window.
“Six.”
David looked out at the pod, hoping that Matilda could see them all watching her.
“Five.”
A photographer’s camera let off a flash, recording the historic moment.
“Four.”
Richie’s head bumped against the glass.
“Three.”
David’s stomach churned.
“Two. Avert gaze!”
Everyone looked away from the centre of the chamber.
“One.”
The room froze.
Suddenly, there was a brilliant flash of light. David managed to look back just in time to glimpse a small sphere of bright blue sky in the centre of the cavern and Matilda’s shiny pod falling into it. The sphere disappeared, leaving the Time Machine an empty dark shell once more.
It worked!
David felt a conflicting mix of elation and loss.
The tense silence of the control room evaporated and there was a frenzy of activity as the scientists and engineers ran their various diagnostics. Machines emitted alarms and scientists yelled out numbers.
Matilda’s poor family crouched by the window in a tight huddle. An island of grief, weeping at the loss of their child and sister.
The cries of the scientists continued.
“O2 and atmosphere normal.”
“Capacitor temperature well within safe margins.”
“Wormhole stability greater than anticipated.”
And then Sam called out.
“Lat-long confirmed! Quantock forest. Somerset, England. Elevation two hundred and twenty-four meters.”
There was a cheer from the control room.
Silence descended again before another scientist bellowed out the information they were all waiting for.
“Pulsar triangulation complete. Date confirmed. September 24, 1123.”