2024-10-24
SHOCKING AWAKENING (by Hannah-2002)—To borrow from the movie, I am finally… back to the future… in my own time… I think.
As I lay sleeping I suddenly realized that I was neither hot nor cold, nudged toward consciousness by unexpected comfort. After days in 1880 Memphis where it was in the mid 80°s by day and low 50°s by night (28-11°C), to be neither hot nor cold was a surprise.
In that twilight in-between state emerged a shocking dream.
I was in the wilderness bathing beside Emma. We stood on a shipping pallet separated from neck to knees from Merritt and Kent by a pancho roped between trees. A 5 gal bucket hung from a branch; the four of us shared a hose with a garden sprayer.
It was early evening and the scent of campfire teased my nostrils as Emma spoke. “Hannah, remember to just say ‘med-kit’ if you can. ‘Medical supply kit’ sounds…”
I interrupted. “I know… like a thing said in 1880… I will do my best…”
At that, Merritt reached for a towel and wrapped it around himself. “I’ve finished. I’ll return t’ camp and await the trainees. They should arrive soon.”
At that, Emma pressed her bare chest into the pancho. “Hey… hey…”
Merrit stopped and looked all around, then met her at the pancho, leaned to her and kissed her softly on the lips. “This seems so improper… unclothed and parted from women by a single sheet of fabric.”
Emma shrugged. “We’re alone in the middle of the wilderness… it’s the 1980s, not the 1880s… I think we’re fine.”
Kent reached for the hose sprayer, pressed the handle and gave himself a rinse. “Turn around Hannah… I’ll rinse your backside.”
I felt myself blushing as I moved close to the pancho and said, “Thank you good sir, but no… I can handle my own rinsing. You need not light your eyes on my… backside.”
Kent’s pleasant laughter pushed me into full consciousness.
I’m lying here replaying the dream so I don’t forget any details. I believe this is very important, and I want to recount it to the others accurately.
2024-10-24
A FIRST GLIMPSE (by Merritt-1960)—Hannah and I ended up at the office after lunch today. We had a chance to talk a little before going separately into the field for… that measuring/talking/looking stuff we do.
Her dream, everyone decided, was probably one of those metaphysical connections—and if so, our first glimpse at the time-travelers who ended up in 1984. That would be the Emma shifted from 2024 and the Merritt, Hannah, and Kent shifted from 1880.
“So,” Hannah said, “it was the doctor version of me… The UT Knoxville version of you, the Pinkerton agent version of Kent, and Emma, who had left Vicksburg on the way to Memphis.”
“Agreed,” I said.
The other Hannah and I had gone through all of the NY SysCo files from 1984 and found where Hannah and Merritt had been hired, but nothing indicated they ever got a paycheck. It seemed like they had declined the jobs after most of the paperwork was already done.
Hannah went on. “There’s a big gap between the shift days and October. What are they doing? Where are they? And how did they get there?”
“Kent pointed out based on the shifts we know for sure that his 1984 had been in the Bronx and ended up in Memphis, so the Pinkerton Kent would have ended up in the Bronx. Doctor Hannah would have ended up in Syracuse. Merritt took my place… from a train to the car…”
Hannah shook her head. “Seems he didn’t die in a car crash…”
I reviewed what she had remembered from the dream. “Trainees… coming there to the wilderness…”
“I’m going with Kent’s idea,” Hannah replied. “What could people from 1880 be training people to do in 1984?”
I nodded. “Roughing it… Living off the land… how to make a fire. How to live without electricity… Basic first aid…”
“It’s a good guess,” Hannah added. “And Emma is helping them learn the ropes of a new century.”
I nodded again. “We don’t have much, but at least we know they… are doing something… somewhere…”
Hannah nodded. “It’s not much… But it’s something.”
1984-10-24
A LONG WAY FROM VICKSBURG (for Emma-2005)—Emma Knox, born in 2005 looked across Glady Fork in the direction the Blue Water trainees had been sent to set up camp. She could just barely hear them settling down for the night.
Orientation had gone well. They should be set for the week’s program.
She looked back toward the camp she shared with Hannah, Kent, and Merritt. Merritt had gone to get another Nalgene bottle of water. They were making hot chocolate over the fire.
As she waited, her thoughts drifted. “I’m a long way from Vicksburg…”
On 2024-07-04, she had boarded a bus for Walls, MS and hitched a ride in a semi to get to Memphis. She fell asleep and woke up on a bus at the Memphis terminal. 40 years earlier.
Unsettled to say the least, she walked through downtown until she neared the Orpheum theater. It was being remodeled and she stopped to look at it.
She saw a man in his forties looking at her intently. He approached and introduced himself. He was Tom Jenkins, a man in the theater business who had come to Memphis to see the remodel himself. He had a strange letter.
“This was waiting for me at the hotel when I checked in.”
The letter told him he would see a girl and know her when he saw her. Her name would be Emma Knox and he was to let her know she had shifted in time from the future.
“You’re supposed to go to Brooklyn. There’s a company there called Blue Water Private Security. A woman named Addison Magee is expecting you. She’ll give you a job. Does any of this make sense?”
Emma said it didn’t and that she didn’t have any money. She pulled her wallet from her purse to show him. In it was a stack of American Express Travelers Cheques; more than enough for bus fare to Brooklyn.
Merritt’s approach drew her thoughts back to the present. His smile was warmer than the campfire.
“My dear, you seemed lost in thought.”
“I was thinkin’ about how I got to Brooklyn.”
“Ah… As amazin’ as was my own journey.” Merritt handed her the Nalgene and instant cocoa. “To think, all that happened to land us here together.”
1984-10-25
PLANS DERAILED (for Merritt-1856)—Merritt stood by Glady Fork, coffee in hand as the sun crept below the mountain peaks to the west. His shower could wait a few minutes while he let Emma and Hannah have some privacy.
It was their first training session without others from Blue Water present. Everything was going well; the 24 trainees aged from 20 to 30. A few seemed to have never been off pavement before.
Merritt recalled the first time he ever saw asphalt—it was not a thing in the 19 Century where he belonged.
He had been on a train bound for Memphis. He had a job waiting there, but a green and yellow glowing cloud had different plans. His seat on the train changed into a seat on what he learned was a car. With the shift came a fundamental knowledge of driving—enough to see him safely to the shoulder of the asphalt.
He exited just in time to be passed by a semi truck. At the time, he likened it to a trackless train pulling a single boxcar.
He didn’t count the number of times he walked around the shiny, red, metal car looking at it. And at the asphalt road on which he had been… driving. After returning to the car—he had no idea what else to do or where he was—he found an envelope addressed to him. The street was unknown, but Atlanta was where he had been raised.
Looking around, he saw a large, green, metal sign: Atlanta - 62 miles. Folded on the seat was a road map.
The next few days became a confusing blur, but he located his house, met versions of his parents, and learned of a job waiting for him in New York City. He had only a few weeks to get there. He figured that was not enough time to catch up on 104 years of engineering advances, but something compelled him to make the trip.
As unsure as he was about what would happen, he was equally sure he was supposed to go.
1984-10-26
THIS IS NO HOSPITAL for Hannah (born 1858)—Hannah awoke and for a moment she thought she was in her bed at the boarding house back in Memphis, back in 1880. It took a few blinks for her to realize it was 1984 and she was in a tent near Glady Fork in Glades Wildlife Management Area, a remote wilderness in southwest Virginia.
At least, she thought, she was—of a sort—in a medical field.
She had graduated from Woman’s Medical College of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia in 1880 and corresponded with City Hospital in Memphis where she would have been a doctor. Only after arriving there did they realize her name was Hannah, no Hannan and that she was a woman.
She had taken a job as a burlesque dancer as she tried to decide what to do. Then, on June 14, she went to sleep normally. She woke up 104 years later in Syracuse NY sleeping in a dorm room.
The details of her first few panicked hours were fuzzy, but by and by she realized where she was and that it was 1984. And that she was supposed to be an engineer, not a doctor. And that she was supposed to go to NYC where she had a paid summer internship waiting for her. She was to report on July 9.
She found papers explaining she had to move out of the dorm by the end of the week. Other papers indicated her home address in Scranton, PA. She also found a ring of small keys.
Shock had washed through her at that moment. She knew what they were though she had never seen them. She knew they were to her car, though she had no idea what a car was. And she knew where to find it, though she had never been to that place before. Something in her mind had left a memory, even, of how to fundamentally operate it—enough to get her to Scranton.
There, she met versions of her parents. They attributed her confusion about almost everything to anxiety about moving to New York, and she played along as well as she could.
She planned her move to NYC; something compelled her to believe that was what she was meant to do.
But, she had no idea what to expect, once she got there.
1984-10-28
COMING TO GRIPS by Kent (born 1854)—Kent did a final check to make sure his weapon was cleared before he put it away. Blue Water Private Security had a special license to use the non-military version of the M-16, the AR-15.
Kent imagined what a platoon of Blue Water trained guards armed with AR-15s would have been like in the Civil War. He was too young and lived too far north to actually be in that war, but he knew plenty about it. Life at the end of the 19th Century had been his norm until he shifted just over a month earlier, on Sept 22.
He had been, in 1880, a Pinkerton Detective charged as bodyguard for Shay Ryder, daughter of railroad tycoon, David Ryder. They had been in Memphis where she was doing volunteer work.
He was helping her into a carriage when the shift occurred. There had been a flash of yellow and green and his head swam for a moment. Then, he was 104 years shifted into the future.
He was in the Bronx, where he had grown up—but a 104 years later version of it— holding open the door to—what he somehow knew was a car for a lovely red-headed woman.
She looked up from—he somehow knew it was the driver’s seat. “Kent? You okay?”
He had nodded, but he really didn’t think he was.
“Kent… Listen to me. My name is Addison Magee, and if you were born in the 1800s, I’ve been waiting for you to time-shift all day.”
Addison explained that she had received a letter from a group called The Pay It Forward Society. It was the fourth letter she had received related to time-traveling people. She had been unable to resist following the instructions.
Addison had, that very day, introduced him to three others: Emma, Hannah, and Merritt. There was an immediate bond between them. They had been shifted going back to the beginning of July. Hannah and Merrit were from 1880, too. Emma… She was from the future; 2024.
“So, you will be doing wilderness training,” Addison said. “I’ll tell you all about it… The others have been waiting on you to get started. Your Pinkerton experiences will be very valuable.”
1984-10-29
TEAM ASSEMBLED by Addison (born 1962)—Addison Magee looked at the check from the Pay It Forward Society one last time. She had made the deposit earlier, still surprised by the whole situation.
She had received the first letter and check months before telling her about the time-travelers and her role in assembling a team for Blue Water Private Security. She thought it was a joke, but a check for 2 months of her salary left her thinking, joke or not—she’d play!
A little over a month before, the full team of four had been assembled. They would comprise the trainers for Blue Water recruits, for the wilderness survival session. Trainees would learn to rough it with minimal supplies, to track and move without leaving tracks, to take care of their gear including weapons while in the wilderness, and all the basics of field medicine and first aid.
Over the summer, Hannah and Merritt, time shifted from 1880 along with Emma, shifted from 2024, all trained to be EMTs. Hannah took the lead, having been a doctor in 1880.
Merritt took the lead for what was called campcraft—using elements from the environment along with strings, cords, tarps, and such to build shelters and camp essentials.
Kent had been in 1880 a Pinkerton Detective. His skills at tracking and familiarity with weapons made him the lead with regard to 1984 equivalents of those things. All of the team learned to handle weapons, to keep them functioning in the wilderness environment.
Emma, since she was not 104 years behind the times, handled team logistics and was the first voice of the team to the trainees.
Addison, an employee of Blue Water who handled scheduling, was very pleased with the hires she had made. They were a good team by any standards.
She was not sure why Pay It Forward wanted all that to happen, but the size of the checks they were sending her made it clear it was important. Time-travel, notwithstanding.
