24 September 1123

“Goodbye Matilda. Good luck.”

Matilda switched off her radio as the finality of David’s words echoed around the pod. Wiping away tears, she stared through the pod’s porthole to savour the view of her family’s silhouettes. One last time.

A light started to flash in the distant control room, signalling her imminent departure. Already thundering, her heart leapt into overdrive. Her sweaty palms clutched the radio to her chest. Stilling herself, she took a deep breath and waited.

Suddenly, there was a brilliant flash of light.

And then she was falling.

There was a strange feeling of being squeezed all over and a slight change in trajectory as she passed through the wormhole but within several rapid heartbeats the dark interior of the time machine swapped to a sunny blue sky.

Matilda jolted as the pod’s parachute deployed. Her stomach lurched and had only just settled back down from her throat when the crashes started, small at first but quickly growing in intensity as her pod pinballed through the branches of a tree. The Chronomad and her carefully packed belongings were flung around within the cramped ball. She heard something snap.

The pod glanced off the tree’s roots and rolled a short distance down a hill before coming to a surprisingly gentle stop. Matilda felt jostled and disoriented, hanging upside down at an awkward angle. The strange feeling of compression from the wormhole lingered.

Matilda took a moment to just hang in place in sheer disbelief as her heart rate finally settled.

She’d done it!

After years of training, it had taken only seconds to make her historic journey. And farewell everything she knew.

The Institute’s psychologists had warned that the transition would be the most emotionally charged period of her journey. But they’d prepared her for it. She wiped her eyes and set her resolve.

Time to save the world…

Matilda emerged from her pod with all the grace of a newborn bird, a tangle of long limbs and curly red hair. She crawled awkwardly from the obstructed pod opening and out into Twelfth Century England, scrambling on her stomach through the mess of parachute cords.

After hours of being curled within the cramped sphere, Matilda savoured the luxury of space as she stood. She stretched her athletic frame, reaching high and standing on the tips of her toes to occupy as much space as possible. Relieved to be out of the dark pod and still amazed to have survived the Drop, she was unsuccessfully brushing herself off when suddenly, she heard it.

Nothing. Absolute silence. Complete stillness.

There had always been some form of commotion in Matilda’s busy life. Her mother crashing around the kitchen, a roommate snoring, engineers arguing or teachers droning. The construction works on Sam’s Time Machine.

But now there was just silence.

Matilda strained her ears and slowly started to make out the sounds of birds and other creatures rustling in the undergrowth. The forest teemed with life.

Matilda soaked in the unspoilt Twelfth Century landscape around her. Undulating hills sloped down to a riverbed and the trees were yellowing in the autumn sun, a beautiful tapestry of yellows, reds and greens. Dappled morning sunlight filtered through the canopy and a slight breeze made the scene shimmer.

It was beautiful.

Matilda took a deep breath of the fresh forest air and, amongst earthy smell of decaying leaves, detected an acrid chemical scent emanating from within her pod. The smell jerked her back to the present and reminded her of the work to be done.

The dented metal sphere came up to Matilda’s waist and was particularly heavy when loaded with all of her supplies. She bundled up the parachute before heaving the pod upright and wrestling it into a workable position.

Matilda reached inside and pulled out the pod’s contents piece by piece, rushing to ensure leaking chemicals didn’t damage her other precious possessions. She carefully inspected each item before arraying them haphazardly on the forest floor around the ball.

Matilda first withdrew her satchel which contained her most precious possession, a copy of the Institute’s standard-issue Chronomad textbook. Rebound with her own custom leather cover and filled with a decade of notes and annotations, Matilda called it her bible. It was rarely out of her sight. Relieved that there was no visible damage, Matilda continued to rifle through her limited belongings.

Out came her bow, some arrows, a shovel. A change of clothes, a tent, her flint and a jumble of cooking equipment. Beside these she placed a box of plant seeds, a hatchet, a spare torch, a telescope, a warm blanket, a small pack of rations. Last to emerge was her comprehensive first aid kit and a case of bottled chemicals. It was in the case that Matilda found the source of the smell, a cracked bottle of acetone. The spill was mostly contained within the case and fortunately hadn’t mingled with any of her more reactive reagents.

When the pod was finally empty, Matilda stepped back to take stock of her entire inventory of worldly possessions. She’d worked with the Institute planners for months to plan and procure everything she might need for her mission and was still baffled at how much fitted within the compact metallic sphere.

She also had the clothes on her back. Each piece had been expertly crafted, from the warm fur‑lined cloak down to her wonderfully supple calf-length leather boots. Amidst Japanese kimonos and Roman tunics, the Institute’s seamstress had tried her best to match Matilda’s descriptions of Twelfth Century historical fashions. Matilda thought the high quality materials would broadcast her wealth, something she hoped to use to her advantage when she reached London, but she worried that it could attract unwanted attention while travelling.

Her fancy clothes hid an additional treasure, one that even the King would lust after. The Institute’s final parting gift was a vest of titanium chainmail, 3D printed to her exact dimensions using a remarkably fine mesh. Sam promised that it could stop even an arrow while still remaining light enough to wear every day. It was an extra security in an unfamiliar world and Matilda had no intention of ever taking it off.

A handful of sentimental personal objects were also among the spartan collection of practical items. A small bottle of champagne from David. One of Richie’s poorly painted toy soldiers. Her grandmother’s engagement ring and a family photo.

Notably absent among her possessions was a firearm. The Institute planners had wanted her to bring one for self-defence but Matilda had strongly declined, insisting that she hoped to create a timeline that skipped combustible technologies wherever possible. It was only by demonstrating her proficiency with a bow and highlighting the difficulties of obtaining additional ammunition that her Institute supervisors finally surrendered.

Matilda smiled at the memory. David had often joked about what a wilful young woman she had grown to be, so different to the meek twelve-year-old who had arrived at the Institute a decade earlier. He’d asked, only semi‑rhetorically, where his teachings had gone wrong.

Satisfied that her belongings were in order, Matilda’s mind snapped to her next task. Finding out precisely when and where she had landed. She couldn’t calculate the date until the stars emerged but knew that keeping busy would stop her mind from dwelling on the enormity of the past hour. Instead, Matilda settled for exploring her more immediate surroundings and getting her first proper glimpse of the past.

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She paused to consider the safety of her belongings but laughed at the absurdity. The dense forest was pristine, entirely untouched by humans. Excluding the giant metal sphere and the broken branches hanging from a nearby tree, of course. Matilda judged that she was probably far from the nearest settlement and decided it was safe to leave her belongings scattered across the forest floor. It was unlikely that anyone would stumble across them in the short time she was gone and forest critters would find them an unsatisfying snack.

Matilda marvelled at the sheer beauty of the forest and its lack of human contact as she trekked towards the peak of a nearby hill. Despite being almost a thousand years younger, this forest felt much older than those she’d explored during her adolescence. Thick gnarled trees stood where they had for centuries. By Matilda’s time, anything that ancient had been harvested for timber or firewood.

A particularly large oak awaited Matilda at the crest of the hill. It looked perfect for climbing and seemed a decent vantage point for inspecting the surrounding landscape. She nimbly scaled the trunk and grabbed hold of its lowest branches, clambering up the tree like a reckless schoolchild.

Matilda paused in awe when she reached the uppermost branches. She could see for miles and marvelled at the pristine Somerset landscape that stretched out in all directions. The only indications of human occupation were a patchwork of cultivated fields and wispy pillars of smoke rising from scattered villages.

She silently thanked the Institute planners who’d argued that keeping Chronomad One geographically close to Sam’s time machine would simplify the physics for their calibration experiments. The region was Matilda’s childhood backyard and guaranteed that she would be Chronomad One.

The Time Machine and giant reactor buildings were conspicuously absent as she scanned the landscape, providing the clearest evidence that she had actually travelled back in time. Matilda’s father was a doctor at the nuclear reactor and Matilda had grown up nearby, allowing her to learn more about the region and its history than even her Institute teachers.

Matilda was relieved to recognise several landmarks from her own time: mountains, rivers and even a hint of coastline off in the distance. When she’d found her bearings, even the pillars of smoke corresponded with familiar villages.

Matilda realised that someone might have seen her parachute and she suddenly longed to get moving. She wanted to get to the King in London as quickly as possible but needed somewhere more permanent to store her pod and bulkier belongings. The Institute had recommended burying them but Matilda’s family had explored a nearby cave during holidays back in the future which could double as a base camp for the first evenings of her new life. She plotted a mental course from her pod and began her descent.

Eager to get started, Matilda scrambled down the tree, skipping the final branches and leaping down to the forest floor. But as her foot met the ground, a jolt of searing pain flashed up her leg and she crumpled in a heap.

Matilda rolled upright and clasped her ankle tenderly, cursing both her foolishness and the disguised root that now protruded from the carpet of decaying leaves. With difficulty, she carefully removed her boot and examined the ankle with an expert eye. It didn’t appear to be broken but was definitely sprained.

Her loud expletive prompted nearby birds to flee from their perches.

Matilda was furious with herself as she calculated the implications. She’d worked with the Institute planners to craft a meticulous schedule for her journey to London and had included a little extra time for any setbacks. But Matilda couldn’t travel to London with a busted ankle. It would be dangerous embarking into the strange new world without the most basic means of escape. Yet recovery would consume her entire buffer.

A solitary tear of pain and frustration rolled down her cheek but Matilda pulled herself together. She hobbled downhill to her pod and quickly assessed which belongings she could carry to her new camp before neatly stacking the rest back into the sphere. She struggled to conceal the giant metal pod with forest debris but, realising the futility of the activity, instead vowed to collect her remaining belongings when she’d established a more secure base of operations.

Matilda fashioned herself a makeshift crutch and set off from her landing zone, limping along animal trails and river banks while juggling the various items required to set up her initial camp. She grumbled to herself as she walked but even her ankle couldn’t dampen the simple joys of dipping her feet into a crystal clear stream or stopping to watch a herd of deer grazing in a glade.

Familiar landmarks occasionally came into view, though the differences from her own time were jarring. The colony of ancient trees was boundless, rock formations showed reduced signs of weathering and wildlife was much more abundant. Matilda didn’t relish the idea of hunting her own food with a damaged ankle but the forest inhabitants seemed much more appetising than the basic rations the Institute had provided for her initial nights in the past.

The sun had already started to set when Matilda finally arrived at the entrance to a familiar gully. She stared into the depression in the landscape and saw the cave opening at its end, overgrown with ivy but undoubtedly the same cave she’d once explored with Richie. Matilda gingerly hurried inside and dumped her belongings on the ground before hurrying to gather firewood while there was still light.

Upon returning, Matilda hastily kindled a small fire to boil water for one of her unappetising ration packs. Her stomach rumbled and she realised that she hadn’t eaten since being loaded into the pod.

Matilda felt a wave of overwhelming loss begin to rise but pushed the feelings down once more. She decided to enjoy the remaining sunlight, hoping it might make her nutritious gruel slightly more bearable. She collected her satchel, telescope and David’s champagne before exiting the cave and hobbling to the crest of a nearby hill where she seated herself among the roots of yet another ancient tree.

A glorious pink sky signalled the end of Matilda’s first day in the past and she devoured her food while the setting sun cast long shadows across the untouched landscape. She popped David’s champagne as the stars emerged and celebrated the day’s momentous achievements. Apart from her ankle, everything had gone according to plan.

Coming from a world where her every minute had been accounted for by others, Matilda appreciated the chance to finally enjoy things on her own time.

She got back to work when the sun had fully set, withdrawing her telescope and expertly measuring the position of several key stars. She performed familiar calculations in her notebook, working by the light of her hand-cranked torch. After some brief consultations with her bible, she drew a square around a date.

24 September 1123.

The Institute scientists had been confident that Matilda would arrive exactly when and where they had planned but she was relieved to verify it herself.

The date had been deliberately chosen to maximise the impact of her journey. England had been on the verge of a renaissance when King Henry’s only heir died in a tragic shipping accident in 1120. The ensuing power struggle sparked a period of civil war known as The Anarchy, briefly teasing the possibility of female empowerment but ultimately extinguishing the flame of progress.

Matilda’s mission was clear. She had several weeks to journey to London and meet King Henry before he departed for a year of campaigning against rebels in Normandy. Using her knowledge and limited equipment from the future, she would win his trust and join his campaign, building influence to ensure that the greatest number of people could benefit from her teachings. By rubbing shoulders with royalty and senior clergy across Europe, she would fuel the budding renaissance and kickstart society’s progress to save this timeline from the calamity that awaited their future.

The Long Day.

Matilda shuddered at the memory. She was only ten when she’d witnessed a star’s sheer power, marvelling with her parents as beautiful ribbons of light danced across the night sky. Her memories had faded but fragments of the aftermath lingered. Months without electricity. Missing favourite foods and television shows. Her father tending to an elderly neighbour, savagely beaten for protecting his backyard orchard.

At only twelve, Matilda had volunteered to help the Institute undo the stellar carnage, understanding even then that it would require great personal sacrifice. She’d never really been ready to leave home and her father’s parting words of encouragement had reminded her of what she’d lost. While she cherished her Institute friendships, they were never quite family.

Matilda was pensive as she lay at the base of the ancient tree staring up at the night sky. The Milky Way was a beautiful band of shimmering stars, unobscured by light pollution and more beautiful than she’d seen since the aftermath of the Long Day.

So beautiful. So powerful. So dangerous.

Matilda’s mission was clear and she knew what needed to be done. But her ankle throbbed, a painful reminder of her own fallibility. It would need weeks to recover.

Matilda rankled at the need to stay put but a part of her breathed a sigh of relief. The final weeks of preparation for her journey had been a rollercoaster of stress, anticipation and loss. As her departure loomed, she had fretted at how much she still didn’t know. She worked to the very end, struggling to cram more into either her head or jotted in the margins of her bible. Only a week earlier, her frustrated Institute classmates had even resorted to hosting her combined farewell and birthday celebration in the Institute library.

Matilda knew she was on the verge of burnout. Taking time for her ankle to recover might mean slightly less time to influence the King, but the resulting mental clarity could prove valuable. Her mind instantly leapt to planning crafts and activities to fill the time. But no, she needed to relax and unwind. To ease into her new life and mourn the one she’d left behind.

Convinced that her revised approach made sense, Matilda pushed back the niggling feelings of loss and loneliness once and for all. She placed down her tools and reclined against the tree, settling in to admire the starry night. A weight lifted from her shoulders, knowing as she swigged her champagne that she could just enjoy herself for the first time since childhood.

The knowledge made it easier to process the enormity of her achievements. In a single day she had gone from a scared young woman afraid to leave her family to the most educated person on the planet.

She was Chronomad One. The first time traveller.