The Timeline, Earth

(posted in wrong location. sorry...)

[posted in wrong location]

Aleksandr Zhukovsky

"Believe it or not, I am from the future," said Demochev, with a lack of grandiosity that came from having uttered that sentence many many times before. "From approximately one hundred and forty years in the future, actually. I will be born ninety years from now in the capital of Georgia and I will grow up to be a quantum physicist specialising in time-travel."

Pausing briefly to look around him at the snow that had settled on the grass beyond the tree line, the serenity of the scene fractured by the sound of shouts and distant gunfire, he went on. If one gave potential Chronologists too much time to think during this initial flurry of somewhat life-altering information then they tended to back away with a look of terror or worse. And Zhukovsky had a gun so it could very well be worse.

"Yes, we have developed- perhaps I should say will develop- time travel. But you will know better than most that human being have an infinite capacity for not only good but bad. Some of my colleagues ignored what was safe and travelled back in time, altering things. And there is only so much alteration that the time-line could take. Rather like ice bending before it breaks. So the time-line has broken and we are currently occupying a small island of space-time that represents one of the larger bits of ice left over, so to speak."

"I am here because I would like to recruit you into a rather different organisation to the one you are now in. We call ourselves the Chronologists and we have charged ourselves with repairing the time-line. We go back in time and help the time-line to spring back to its original shape, to glue the ice back together again," he said, then fell silent, waiting for a reaction from the other man. Occasionally it was easy to guess how another person would react but mostly, Demochev didn't have a clue. And Aleksandr was no exception.

Chen Jiang


"Of course," said Demochev, with a smile as he returned the bow. He liked the monk already. Chronologists were all too often men and women of action, some of them a little too gung-ho for Demochev's liking. Chen was clearly a thinker, a strategiser, much like Demochev himself.

"Time is a very ordered thing. I expect you see it as the constant movement of qi, am I correct? Like a ticking clock, though that will mean nothing to you as I don't believe they've been invented yet." Demochev cleared his throat. "Excuse me, I digress. Well, I study the flow of time. In the future you see, we will know much more than people do now about how objects and people move through time. Rather like a boat sailing down a river," he added, gesturing to the stream into which Chen had dropped his plum. He was enjoying this analogy- it fitted very well into what he was attempting to explain.

"But we were never meant to sail our boats upstream and upset the flow of other boats. We were not supposed to change things. Nature can compensate, to a certain degree. Certain parts of the river can flow a little faster to bring a boat back into the path it should be following but there's only so much it can do. People who did not care about the consequences caused an earthquake. Rocks tumbled into the river, damning up some parts and creating whirlpools and rapids so the boats cannot sail properly. It is my job to help to lift out those rocks, make events as they should be, and make the river calm again."

"But I need your help, you see there are many rocks and we must have many people to lift them out again. We call these people Chronologists and I would very much like you to join us."

David St Clair

"My name's Demochev," he said, eyeing the soldier with weary wariness. Having a weapon pulled on him during a recruitment was not a new experience and one that the weapon-bearer often came to regret when he never ceased to remind them of it during their time as a Chronologist. "And I'd put that away if I were you. I'm unarmed- I'm not going to hurt you. That would rather defeat the point of why I'm here..."

"I shall make this quick. I am from several hundred years in the future when time-travel is as commonplace as the assembly of places like Legionville are now. Unlike war, however, not all is fair in time travel. Rogue travellers have disrupted the natural flow of time by altering things along the way. As a consequence, although you do not know it, you have been acting out the last five and a half hours on a loop for six months. Time is stuck and I and others have taken it upon ourselves to fix it. We would like you to join us," he finished, with satisfaction at such a concise explanation. That would give the bad-mannered soldier something to chew on.

"If you need convincing of my origin, do let me know," he added, with a smile.

What was the world coming to when midwives and healers, women who should be respected and valued, could be burnt at the stake with little more than a jealous accusation? Germany, Switzerland, even Geneva; they’d all gone mad with this witch hunting nonsense. The trials themselves were also complete bullocks. Torturing confessions out of people, circumstantial evidence, it was all crazy; and yet the entire country seemed ablaze with this fevered frenzy to destroy witches. The Church had vehemently joined the cause as well, targeting not just witches, but Jews and Protestants as well as a means of conversion. The obvious politics of it all was especially appalling.

“My Lady, Bishop Julian has arrived for an audience. He has seated himself in your solar.” Anne, Countess Francesca’s maid servant timidly relayed to her mistress. Francesca stood sourly from her seat in her chambers at the news. Bishop Julian was a power seeking status climber, and was exploiting the witch trials as a way to garner attention and favour from the Pope and his Cardinals. Undoubtedly he was here to relay threats of hellfire or petition from the pope excomunication if she did not comply to his will. “Tell Madame Russou the blankets I ordered have arrived as well. Her charges and their families should be well alleviated by the news.” Francesca ordered, before making her way to the west wing to face the Bishop. Wasn't he in for a rude awakening.

Francesca du Grenoble

"I doubt very much that I will encounter the 'ire' of the pope, as you put it," said Demochev smoothly. "And it would be difficult to excommunicate me, as I am not a catholic. I am, in fact, a scientist from approximately five hundred years in the future. I am sure you don't believe me but please listen to what I have to say before you go calling the guards..." he added, more out of habit than any other reason. That did tend to be the first reaction of a great number of people he tried to recruit.

"I have come to see you because I am recruiting people to join my organisation. In my time, we have invented a means of travelling through time. Which is how I visit you now, of course. But we soon discovered what has happened, has happened and trying to change things that impact too much on human existence creates instability. Cause and effect begin to not match up and the very substance of time begins to crumble. Unfortunately people from my own time ignored warnings about this and continued with their foolish experiments. The course of time shattered into thousands of tiny pieces and although you do not know it, you are currently trapped in one of those pieces, repeating a period of seven hours in a continuous loop. Whilst this might not matter to you, it has meant that time can not, to use an odd turn of phrase, continue. If we do not repair the time-line, there will be no future."

He sat back in his chair and smoothed down the cumbersome robes. He hoped this one would go without a hitch; he'd had too many troublesome recruitments to deal with in the last few days.

"I'd very much like you to help me do this."

Well, it would seem this man most certainly was not one of her father’s associates, and in fact, seemed to sound more like a raving lunatic than anything else. Francesca listened to his story more out of perverse curiosity than anything else, and was a bit bothered by how calm and logically he spoke, despite the insane subject matter. She was presented with two possibilities for this man. He could, like many others, simply have eaten a bad crop of rye, and be quite out of his head with fever. His dress and mannerisms however, did not elect to the idea that he was accustom to eating such messily fare, neither did his behavior ring of the usual out of control madness she’d seen before. The other, which she found very hard to believe, was that this eloquent man really was whom he said he was, and for some odd reason, had deemed her an asset. That too, in the man’s world that she lived in, seemed quite ludicrous.

“That Sir, was quite a tale, though I’m sure you’ll understand my skepticism as I’ve yet to see any proof to your claim besides your charming ability to acquire Bishop’s clothes, which to most rational people, brands you more a thief than scientist.” Francesca replied with a raised brow, and though with obvious suspicions, her tone did not yet brand him crazy.

“And if your claim is true Sir, what might I inquire inspired you to seek me out for your lovely righteous quest?”

Aleksandr Zhukovsky

"The Germans will have an awful lot on their collective conscience for the rest of the century," said Demochev calmly. "And I do speak the truth; I'm glad that you are willing to believe me. You can do so much more for your people, for people in general in fact, if you come to work with us."

"Now you have agreed, we may begin. Please stretch your arm out and expose it to the elbow. I am going to implant a small metal chip underneath your skin. It's akin to a tracking device and it allows my team to pinpoint you or any other member of the Chronologists in space and time. Once we are able to do this, we can retrieve you from the when and where in which you are currently residing and transport you back to our base at the end of every mission. I have one myself," he added, rolling up the stiff wool sleeve of his greatcoat to show the square dimple beneath the skin at the crook of his elbow.

Digging into his pocket, he brought out the metallic slender device.

"I often say to the people I recruit that this process may hurt a little but I think that, as you are a soldier, you have been through much worse," said Demochev with a smile. "So perhaps I shan't warn you after all."

He pressed the device to Aleksandr's bare forearm and soon it was done. He withdrew it, leaving a dimple just like his own beneath the other man's skin.

"Soon," Demochev said. "You'll leave all this behind."

Soon was correct. In just two and a half seconds, Demochev and Aleksandr left the snow-shrouded woodland behind in a burst of light followed swiftly by darkness.

Chen awoke on the floor of an odd room, with walls the color of sand but covered with panels the color of the military's finest swords and strangely-colored buttons and coils. Above his head a small red light blinked casually, and the monk counted three blinks before an overwhelming wave of nausea forced a grunt from his throat. His hands shifted from folding across his chest to clasping his stomach. A long, slow breath served to temper the feeling, and as it weakened he slowly rose to his knees.

A sound at his left -- the sound of running water, quite unexpected in this place -- drew his attention, and he turned to face the small metal sink. He kept his kneeling position, gathering his strength and pushing aside the last of his nausea as a sound filled the room. The timbre was much like the man who had brought him here, but the words he did not recognize. As the voice disappeared, a panel just to one side slid open to reveal a hallway.

Chen assumed that meant that he was to exit. The assumption was confirmed as he watched two others walk past the open door, one male and one female, both very strangely clad and looking as confused as he felt. As Chen contemplated his situation, he pulled back his sleeve to examine the site where he had been injected. So, against all logic, it appeared that Demochev had been honest with him -- he was, indeed, somewhere else in Time, afloat in the broken river.

Several moments passed as the monk considered his situation. He did not know what was expected of him, or where to go. All he could do was trust in the Tao. With that resolve in his heart, he rose smoothly from his meditative kneel to his feet and began a slow walk out the open door. He could hear voices not far along down the hallway, the strange voice of Maxim over all others, still speaking the strange language he did not understand.

Suddenly, a tremendous pain sheared through the base of his skull, rattling up and around until it felt as though it bled out his eyes. Placing one hand on the hallway wall to steady himself against the surprising pain, Chen blinked twice as he realized he could comprehend Demochev's speech. With renewed interest, he quickened his pace and emerged into the conference room just as the others were filing into what he assumed were the closets that held the clothing he overheard Maxim prescribe.

His brown eyes flashed with their thoughtful intensity as he looked at the time traveler who had brought him here, quietly speaking his first words as a time traveler himself: "The Inviolabilis. You have brought all of us here? Here is where we restore Time?" He would follow the others in a moment, as that was obviously what Demochev expected, but... he needed a touch of reassurance, a connection in this strange new world.

When Francesca first arrived with Demochev at his, time base, she had first had a head ache, and then walked into the room she had been given, not to be seen coming out until the following day. She did not believe in showing weakness to anyone, and the nearly catatonic state she’d been in while trying to digest the truth of where she was, what was to happen to her in her own time, and what she was to do from here, was most definitely something she would consider weakness. And so she dealt with it from the relative privacy of her room. Upon morning, she’d reached her decision. She was as good as dead in the past either way, so she might as well live here, in this strange alien future and help Demochev. It did nothing for her to mope like a sullen little girl in her room, and so she left, in search of the man who had brought her here; and a history book.

Francesca made her way through the compound, with its odd walls made in a style that was completely different from the types of wooden and stone structures she was used to in her own time, until she came to a room where she heard voices and entered. There were quite a few people there whom she did not recognize (not that she truly expected to) and they were all dressed quite oddly to her standard in what appeared to be some kind of uniform garb.

“It would appear I am late.” Francesca stated, no hint of apology in her voice, before she turned her head toward Demochev. “And just the man I was looking for. I have a few questions…” Her last statement did not contain vulnerability, as some in her position might, but rather the tone of an inquiring merchant or businessman asking after an investment.