Chrono Voyage

Chapter 12: Hideout

     Both of them wasted no time and directed the machine towards the 21st century because that’s where all the clues were pointed at. As soon as they got out of the machine they went into the New York Public Library, they walked into the main hall with the tables and sat randomly to one of them.

     “Do you really think Leonardo did it? Do you think he placed the device in the armor?” asked Benjamin.

     “I hope so,” she looked at him as she pulled out the laptop that she had connected with the tracking device and turned it on.

     “What does it say?” asked Benjamin anxious to know the location of the Prophet once and for all. Elizabeth did not say a word and just stared at the screen. It seemed their plan was working with Leonardo putting the device in the armor, however, for the moment, it wasn’t active.

     “Bloody hell,” said Elizabeth. “Why did I think it would work?” she rubbed her eyes and lay down on the table.

     “Oh come on, it has to be working…” Benjamin refused to believe they had failed.

     “Unless of course…” she sprang back up immediately. “How could I have been so stupid? I bought a device that automatically connects to wi-fi, who knows where he is right now? Probably back in history where there is no wi-fi and the device does not ping. But… at one point he must have connected to wi-fi and it would tell us his location.”

     “Yes exactly!!!” yelled Benjamin disturbing everyone who was in the library. “Sorry…” he sat down. “What is wi-fi?” he asked.

     “Doesn’t matter now,” she was pressing on the buttons fast, and alas she got a location, it showed her where the device has been connected to the particular network the longest and might as well be the same location where the Prophet has been sleeping. “I have a location,” she looked at Benjamin who couldn’t hold it together, they would finally catch him unprepared and put a stop to all of his evil doings and then Benjamin could finally be back to his peaceful life in his room on the fifth avenue surrounded by books.

     “Where does it say?” he asked.

     “London…” Elizabeth closed the laptop and looked outside the big windows. 

     Benjamin jumped from the table ready to go after him, but Elizabeth remained and hesitated, because a theory was brewing in her mind, she may have the answer on who the Prophet was, nevertheless she stood up and walked toward the machine flying it toward London.

     “Where is it exactly?” asked Benjamin whilst in the time machine.

     “It’s not exactly in London but in the outskirts of it,” she spoke with her focus on flying the machine.

     “Where exactly?” he asked again.

     “See for yourself,” they arrived already, and is no surprise for a machine that can travel in different dimensions it can surely be really fast to traverse the globe in a matter of minutes. She landed the machine down and covered it so that no one could see it or notice it. She looked in the distance and took a deep breath of the familiar British air it was good to be back home even if it was a century or two in the future. “Cambridge…” she spoke. They walked down to Wolfson Court dorm and stood at the entrance looking at the building with a futuristic yet simple brown design.

     “Can I help you love?” asked the security of the grounds while he was heading towards Elizabeth.

     “Oh… I forgot,” she looked at Benjamin, as she ran back to the machine leaving him confused and alone with the guard.

     “Where’d she go?” asked the guard.

     “Oh… I don’t kn… She forgot something,” poor Benjamin had no idea what to say. She hopped right back into the machine which she used to jump dimensions and was back the same second carrying security cards with their names on them so they can enter, she showed the cards to the security person and he let them inside without asking questions or saying things like: I have never seen you before around here, Do you and what do you study at Cambridge? Nothing… he just let them pass. Benjamin and Elizabeth entered the room that they were looking for hoping to see what they wanted to see, to be full of clues indicating that this is the Prophet’s room. Elizabeth’s mind was racing her theory was developing even further, with what Leonardo said that the Prophet’s it's just a kid and now it makes sense, the Prophet`s room is located near the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics which would explain his knowledge of nuclear energy and aerodynamics. The Prophet is a student except which one? Sure Elizabeth could run the books and search for whoever is staying in that room but that would raise a couple of eyebrows and could even get to the ears of the authorities which was something Elizabeth and Benjamin would have to avoid after the wanted posters that were all over London. It made no sense Benjamin searched the room twice, not a single clue, not a photo of the student, not a single trace, not even a laptop, nor notebooks with his handwriting as if nobody even stayed in the room. “But it makes no sense,” said Elizabeth.

     “Maybe we are at the wrong place,” assumed Benjamin.

     “No, we are here,” said Elizabeth as she walked around. “Something is weird, there are no chairs nor tables, two beds in a room that is made for a single student, look here,” she crouched next to the bed that seemed to be out of place. Both of them moved it aside and revealed the markings of where a cupboard stood.

     “But where does the wi-fi come from?” Elizabeth asked herself not seeing a single router in the room. Could it be the same wi-fi network that every student was using in the dorm? No the name of the network was different from the one that Elizabeth saw on the laptop. She walked into the living room but everything seemed in place, she walked into the bathroom and everything was in order, and finally, she walked into the kitchen and there was one thing that really seemed out of place.

     “Benjamin…” she called out for him.

     “Yes…” he walked in into the kitchen.

     “What do you eat when you study?”

     “Whatever the servants cook,” he answered.

     “Do you ever cook?”

     “No.”

     “Would a student bother himself with cooking when they have food at the canteen?”

     “No, I suppose not.”

     “Then why have a stove in every room when you can save money, unless of course…” she opened the door of the stove. “It’s not a stove,” she said.

     “What?” Benjamin walked next to her and looked inside the stove, except there was no inside, it was just a passage to another room. Elizabeth sprang up and now that it was obvious she noticed the wall behind the stove was destroyed and then built back up, probably to transfer the furniture around the two rooms. They moved through the passage that was big enough for one person at a time and came out on the other side in a dark room that was only lit by the light coming from the monitors. The walls were covered with photos of famous events and figures from the history of humanity, they were connected by a thread one led to the other, Elizabeth picked up a sheet of paper that explained why the photos are connected, it seemed the Prophet had mathematically calculated the outcome he would get if he changes the timeline in the order that he had imagined. Benjamin came into the room and starred at the walls, he saw that there were two pictures of him and Elizabeth attached next to each other with a text below ‘HOW DO THEY KNOW?’ written in red and angrily.

     “Look at this…” said Benjamin showing the photos of him and Elizabeth, she moved closer and looked at herself, it was what she had feared that somebody someday would make a portfolio about her and have all the information from history collected about her.

     “Who is he?” she read below Benjamin’s photo. “I am sorry mate,” she looked at him.

     “For what?” he asked.

     “He does not know who you are.”

     “Yeah so? How is that a bad thing?”

     “It means you have lived and died through history without doing anything remarkable, otherwise they wouldn’t have had a hard time knowing you.”

     “Well, how do they know you then? If you are so good at hiding.”

     “I don’t know, but I intend to find out,” she walked towards the monitors as she sat down and grabbed the mouse and keyboard closer to her, whilst Benjamin walked around the rooms looking for more conspicuous stuff.  “This is a gold mine,” yelled Elizabeth across rooms. “He wrote down everything that he planned and the way he executed it, this would surely help us in future missions,” said Elizabeth as she kept rummaging around the database. “Wait! What are you supposed to be?” she clicked on a file. “Oh, dear…”

     “What is it!?” yelled Benjamin from the other room.

     “It would seem… he is working on a project a serious one,” she looked at the monitor with disbelief.

     “What kind of project?” asked Benjamin.

     “I don`t know, It would take me days to read through all of this,” said Elizabeth scrolling down through the text and the images, we need to copy this and read it, whatever it is he is planning is not good, he could be making a big step against us.”

     “About that…” Benjamin returned to the room where Elizabeth was and stood behind her. “I don`t think it`s only a he.”

     “What do you mean?” Elizabeth turned the chair and looked at Benjamin who held out a photograph of a boy and girl taking a selfie, Elizabeth stood up and walked towards the photo.

     “I know this motherfucker,” Benjamin pointed at the boy.

     “And I know this b***h,” Elizabeth took the photo in her hands and inspected it, now both of them knew who the Prophet was and looked at each other with their faces pale.