Chrono Voyage

Chapter 2: A Doctor and an Engineer

                                                                               One week before the ball

     Elizabeth landed with her machine in the year 2050 in Fellow`s Garden concealing the machine with branches, twigs, and bushes she could find nearby, she looked left and right making sure nobody was spying on her, changed her clothes according to the era but kept the round glasses and took the road that led to one of the bridges of River Cam. She crossed the bridge and past the road between Scholar`s and Master`s Garden she went inside Cambridge University as she navigated through the marble halls avoiding the guards that looked at her suspiciously. She hid in one of the laboratories and stole a white laboratory coat becoming a scientist in Cambridge. But her job was far from over she started rushing through the halls as she bumped into another female colleague that was studying or probably teaching at Cambridge as well, she couldn't tell the difference.                                                                                                    

     “So sorry,” she apologized quickly stealing the ID card she had strapped on her belt. The girl had long flattened brunette hair with Vietnamese dark eyes, a small nose, and thin rose lips.                                                                                                                                         

     “No worries,” smiled the student. “It`s my fault, It`s my final physics exam and I am sort o all over the place.”                                                                                                            

     “Oh well… good luck,” smiled Elizabeth.                                                                          

     “Hey have I seen you before? What are you studying here?” asked the student.                                                                                                                      

     “Oh…you know…” froze Elizabeth. “Engineering.”                                               

     “Really? Well I will let you now unharmed,” said the student.                             

     “What was that?” asked Elizabeth.                                                                                       

     “Oh you know how physicists are taking the piss on Engineers,” reminded the student.                                                                                                                        

     “Right…” said Elizabeth. “So I should be going now.”                                           

     “Right, don’t let me keep you,” nodded the student. “Hey, we should get together sometimes.”                                                                                                             

     “I`d love that,” said Elizabeth as she quickly stormed off. “Ivy Nguyen… Interesting,” Elizabeth read the name of the student on the card, she used the ID card from Ivy and unlocked a door that led her inside a laboratory that contained a device that looked like a shallow 3D black triangular prism made out of metal, but what sort of a device it is only Elizabeth knew, she picked it up like a trophy and smiled.                                                                                                                

     “Alas…” she shook it. “New and improved Grav-Gen device,” of course it`s a gravitational generator device, everybody knows that if you were to build a time machine you`d need enormous amounts of gravity even more than a black hole to slow down time and even reverse it and you need to turn off the Grav-Gen to cancel things out because you wouldn`t want to be sent back in time with no way of returning. Well not everybody knew because Elizabeth never actually told anyone about the time machine, she kept it secret she knew that she will have to deal with the government and them asking for her technology mostly to “help the government,” and all those lies, besides she could use the machine whenever she is bored she could go to having a cake with Marie Antoinette to attending the Live Aid concert just when Queen was performing.

     Elizabeth took the device placed it in a bag and left the laboratory in a hurry. She ran across the halls and came to the courtyard as a physics student reported a missing device. The guards swarmed the courtyard searching for the device, or searching for the one that may have possibly stolen it. Elizabeth stood there not knowing what to do as she started making her way across it.                                                                                           

     “Hey Ma`m!” called out one of the guards but she ignored him and picked up her pace. “Ma`m please stop!” the guard called out again. “Ma`m!” he started chasing after her as she picked up her pace even more.                                                                                                                          

     “Mother what are you doing here,” said a boy that bumped into her. “It`s alright sir, she is my mother,” said the boy. “She`s come to visit me, you know how parents are,” smiled the boy.                                                                                 

     “Who are you?” whispered Elizabeth.                                                                        

     “Come on play along,” whispered the boy as they walked away from the guard. “Name`s Hendrix Hamilton,” he shook her hand.                                                          

     “Eliza… Ivy Nguyen,” Elizabeth looked at the ID card that she stole from the girl.                                                                                                                               

     “Nguyen, I know who she is,” smiled the boy. “But I don`t know you,” Hendrix looked at her and spooked her. “Don`t worry, I won`t give you up. After all that device you`ve stolen, it belongs to our rival team, but now that it`s gone it seems our team shall win,” he smiled. “And we will all be legends…, of course, we don`t know that yet, but yeah…” the boy was the most innocent looking boy you`ve ever seen it had freckles across the face wore bracelet`s that made him lisp and on top of that it was ginger with bright brown eyes. Innocent but his devious intentions suggested otherwise. “Can I just…” he opened his arms wide as she hugged Elizabeth who was very confused as to what is going on right now, but nevertheless he thanked Hendrix for helping her and started moving toward the machine in which she entered and left for London in the 19th century.

                                                                                              ●●●

    “Um…where are we?” asked Benjamin as soon as he stepped out of the machine.                                                 

    "In the dinosaur era Mr. Benjamin,” Elizabeth stepped out as well and looked around the barren place that Earth was. “Oh there look…” she pointed toward a group of dinosaurs.                                                                                                               

     “A sauropod`s?” asked Benjamin as he looked at the green big creatures.               

     “You seem to know your dinosaurs Mr. Benjamin, me myself I`ve never bothered to learn them by name,” said Elizabeth.                                                                                                                 

     “Well it`s my job to know,” said Benjamin.                                                                        

     “Do you like it?” asked Elizabeth.                                                                                     

     “Very much so, alright then, what`s the gig? What`s the trick here?”                  

     “What trick?” she was confused.                                                                                           

     “I mean come on, this can`t be real…right?”                                                               

     “Does that seem real to you?” Elizabeth pointed at the sky.                                

     “What?” Benjamin looked up to the sky and saw the sun. “Well it`s just the sun,” he scoffed, as he looked up again and saw as the sun grew larger and larger. “That`s not the sun!” he panicked. He kept staring at the comet that was on its way to plummet on the Earth`s surface. “We need to get out here!” he warned as Elizabeth didn`t seem to be bothered it seemed that she was going to layout a coffee table and have her afternoon tea whilst the dinosaurs were going extinct. Benjamin was done for, he nearly passed out from all the immense panic as Elizabeth finally made her point to him that time travel is real and it`s not some kind of a joke. She helped him get inside the machine and pressed a couple of buttons making the machine disappearing just before the comet crashed and engulfed the Earth`s crust.

     “What the f**k was that?” asked Benjamin who was gasping for breath, and holding his palm to his chest just near the hearth in all his life he`s never have had such a panic attack and he lives inside an apartment that`s really confined with books nonetheless.                                                                                                        

     “Wait till you see this next one it`s even better,” smiled Elizabeth as she steered the machine and stopped suddenly. The bright light from the outside nearly blinded them.                                                                                                                    

     “Oh I should put a filter on that,” Elizabeth covered her eyes with her palm.                                                                                                                                 

     “Where are we?” asked Benjamin.                                                                                         

     “The future of course,” Elizabeth stepped outside and walked past a statue that stood in front of a building that she was heading into.                                            

     “Who is he?” asked Benjamin looking at the statue.                                             

     “Oh…that`s Benedict,” she answered.                                                                       

     “Benedict?”                                                                                                                      

     “Yeah, it says right there Cpt. Benedict Lenov,” Elizabeth pointed at the substrate.                                                                                                                              

     “Am I supposed to know who he is?”                                                                         

     “Not yet, except he will be the hero of Earth when he defeats Hex,” explained Elizabeth.      

     “Hex?” Benjamin was even more confused.                                                                        

     “Right, so Hex is the one that will destroy planet Earth in about, Blimey! a couple of minutes,” Elizabeth looked at the watch.                                                                   

     “I`m sorry what?” Benjamin was on the verge to start panicking again.              

     “No worries we`d be long dead when that happens,” assured Elizabeth.        

     “We`d be dead in minutes!!!” yelled Benjamin.                                                               

     “Not until I get my device.”                                                                                          

     “What device!?” Benjamin was getting livid it was so unlike him if somebody who knows him were to see him they wouldn`t recognize the same Benjamin, but Elizabeth really pushed him very far. He promised himself immediately after he gets back to London he is taking the chariot and his servant and off to New York, he is. “I knew I shouldn`t have come to that blasted ball,” he said to himself, it`s brought him nothing but trouble.

     He followed Elizabeth inside the space administration building and quickly entered a warehouse where the UNE Tereshkova space ship was parked, she scanned around the warehouse and finally spotted the device she was after.                                                                                                                          

     “Well what is it?” asked Benjamin. “Looks like a gun.”                                         

     “Not a gun, a scanner,” Elizabeth inspected the device as she ran outside to scan the machine, she turned on the device and scanned the machine from top to bottom. “Scan complete, problem detected,” spoke the device.                                                                                                                              

     “Well alright then what seems to be the matter?” she asked the device.    

     “Faulty engineering,” it answered as Benjamin started laughing at Elizabeth.                                                                                                                           

     “What`s the cause?” she asked angrily.                                                                      

     “Unknown device, origins not found,” the device answered again.                      

     “So it wasn’t the new part…” Elizabeth inspected the machine. “What could be this new device and who put it there?”                                                                           

     “The machine seems pretty fine to me,” remarked Benjamin.                             

     “No… the blackout and the surge weren`t caused by the machine.”                     

     “With what then?”                                                                                                     

     “This,” she looked at the scanning device. “Unknow device, origins not found,” she read the text from the screen. “Whatever it was, it screwed with my machine and somebody planted it there.”                                                               

     “And you intend to find him?”                                                                                    

     “Yes but first let`s get you home,” Elizabeth stood up as she noticed Benjamin starring at the sky.                                                                                                            

     “Does Earth have two red suns in the future?” he asked.                                         

     “Umm…no,” she replied as she looked up and saw the two bombs that Hex launched toward Earth. “Come on!!! Let`s move!!!” Elizabeth started panicking this time, compared to the situation with the dinosaurs. They lifted off and spectated as the Earth`s crust was getting engulfed…again.                                               

     “This is how it ends?” asked Benjamin.                                                                    

     “For Earth…yes, but not for humanity, we move on to a new planet called Tera home planet of Hex, ironic really.”                                                                                 

     “What is?”                                                                                                                         

     “Hex spent all his immortal life trying to destroy us, and in the end, we end up living on his planet.”                                                                                                               

     “Well a shame really, I won`t be able to visit this Benedict fellow, he sounds…alright,” nodded Benjamin.                                                                    

     “Right…” smiled Elizabeth as she looked at Benjamin just sitting there in the co-pilot seat.