It was that girl again. The pretty, blonde one that would look up and give you this look, with bright, humorous eyes, a knowing look, like she knew every single one of your secrets.
She was sat at her usual desk, right in the middle of the only lit section of the room, rifling through papers and flicking slowly through thick, weathered, ancient books on the lore of long lost civilisations and broken legends that had now faded into myth. I wondered what she studied for so fervently; what information she searched for.
Her forehead creased, like always, as she bent over the pages, the soft skin folding in concentration. Isn't it interesting how skin folds and stretches and gleams. I'm an artist you see. I wasn't even meant to be in this part of The Library. I'm was meant to be studying artistic techniques of the 48th century a few miles away, forty floors down, but I'd come up there to look at the mythic background of a piece of work and become entranced, completely and totally entranced at the face of a beautiful stranger.
She wasn't unlike anyone I'd ever seen in appearance. But there was something about her that just wasn't quite … human. I mean I'm not exactly one to talk.
I had a rare disease, when I was very little, still do actually, and I was blinded by it. The easiest way to explain it is that sometimes parts of my body just decide to shut down. No warning, just 'Caput'. Gone. My eyes gave out before birth. Because of it I didn't even know my own face until I was six. But my parents finally gathered together enough money for my transplants. I have robotic eyes, and various other robotic parts, such as a lung, and my liver. You wouldn't be able to tell unless I told you, but I'm kind of a Cyborg. I don't like that term though. It's ugly, and it makes me feel unequal. Even though Cyborgs do have equal rights now, they're still not treated the same.
But with this girl it wasn't like that, she wasn't part robot. The problem was she just looked to perfectly human, like she was a newborn, like if babies were born as 21 year olds she's be what they looked like: new, and curious; glowing with it, full of potential.
I guess that's why I watched her, for hours every day. It wasn't because I liked her, I didn't know her, but because she was new and enchanting. A species all of her own. And it was a young artist's heaven.
I was crouched behind a bookcase in a practically deserted section of the largest Library in the Universe. I knew I should leave, get on with finishing my degree, and forget about the girl, but I just couldn't get up and walk away.
"How long are you planning on sitting there, it's really very distracting." The girl spoke. I had never heard her voice before: it tinkled like the bells of my home planet of Aurum Lorem as they chimed across the golden sky, on a crisp morning, as my people would begin to rise to start their days. Then the nuns of Solem would begin their morning hymns and not pause till midday.
I stood up and took a cautious step out of the shadows and into the light, slinging my satchel across my shoulder as I did. I fell into her gaze and shook my head slightly, trying not to think about how her eyes were the exact colour of the waters of the wondrous ocean planet of Sǽcula. Or how her hair shined like the famed third sun of Rellcium 4.6,
"I … um,"I stuttered. It was at that point I really wished I had never given into the whims of my artistic mind.
"Yes?" The girl smirked; she looked as though she took pleasure in making me squirm.
"I like watching you,"
"I got that," The girl said, with a slight laugh in her tone, "but why?"
"You're different," I said simply.
The unusual girl looked me over, like she was analysing a complicated equation that didn't quite add up. I looked down at myself. I looked like any other boy from one of the human colonies might look: dark, floppy hair, bright blue eyes, lanky, skin like milky coffee. I was nothing special, but she was different.
She crossed her arms, "Yeah, well, sorry Mate. You're not exactly normal either."
"Who are you?" I breathed as I bunched my eyebrows together.
"Jenny," she pursed her lips, "Just Jenny. And you?"
I thought there could be no harm in telling her my name, "Vigil Sidera, of the fields of Aurum Lorem."
"Nice to meet you, Vigil," Jenny sent me a crooked smile. She turned round, back to her desk, and started collecting her papers.
"Don't you have a home?" I said.
"No," She answered shortly, still collecting up her papers, I thought I heard her mutter, "I haven't found him yet."
"No birthplace?"
"Messaline, but I left the day I was born so I don't really … you know, have a special connection with it or anything." She finished ordering her books and papers and began to stuff them into her rucksack.
"Family?" I wanted to understand this strange girl.
"Look," Jenny spun round, "I'd really rather not talk about it, and certainly not to a complete stranger. Sorry."
"Understood," I nodded. I was a little disappointed, though I had deducted that 'Family' was obviously a sore spot from her reaction. She slung her rucksack on her back.
She zipped (I believe that's the right term) up her antique jacket, which was in surprisingly good condition considering it came from an era where they still had zippers, and began to enter a command into some sort of wrist appliance. Maybe some sort of transporter or teleport, though it was unlike any I'd ever seen before.
"It was nice chatting with you Vigil Sidera," Jenny announced politely, she gestured for us to shake hands so I stepped toward her and accepted.
Then she smiled sweetly and cheerily said, "Goodbye."
I didn't want her to leave; there was so much I wanted to know. So I reached out and grabbed her arm before it disappeared, "Wait," I yelled.
I felt forces pull at my face as the world went dark, and I began to panic that I had, once again gone blind, but then I began to see colour after colour after colour; greens and blues and reds and yellows, flashing and pinning into each other. I was floating and falling at the same time, and heat like I'd never experience before followed by a freezing cold whoosh of air. We landed on a hard metal floor with force.
I groaned, and held my head. It was spinning, I felt nauseous. My robot lung struggled to help me breathe.
Jenny on the other hand jumped of the floor and yelped, scratching helplessly at her wrist, trying to remove her transporter. It was only after she managed to tear it from her skin and throw it to the ground did I see that it was smoking, and had left its imprint on Jenny's skin in red.
"You, Idiot," She screamed, she was furious. She made to aim a kick at my side, as I lay on the floor, and I prepared myself, curling into a ball, but she stopped herself and fell to the ground. She began to cry in frustration.
I blinked. We seemed to be in a small room, like caretakers closet. There were shelves on the walls and they were stacked with cleaning equipment and fluids that I had never set eyes before. The only light was coming from a dim source above us.
"I'm so sorry, Jenny," I crawled over too her, trying to console her, "We can't have gone that far, it'll be fine."
"Not that far," Jenny huffed and clenched her fists, "Try the 51st century, Vigil."
"I don't …" I began.
"That," Jenny pointed at the sizzling piece of technology on the metal grating, "was a Vortex Manipulator."
"But…" I realised, if I was 100 years ahead of where I had been: I was never going to see my family again, or my beautiful planet. Or finish my degree. I was forever stuck a hundred years in the future with a beautiful girl who already hated me. My family were dead now, all my friends, and professors, and acquaintances, they were long gone. They'd never know what happen to me. They died without knowing where I'd gone, maybe they thought I'd died or been kidnapped.
Jenny sobbed softly, "I'm never going to find him now,"
A silent tear ran down my cheek, "But, Time Travel, that's illegal. Unless you're a Time agent, are you a Time Agent?"
Jenny scowled at me, "No!"
We sat in a tense and heavy silence for a while. I pulled myself together and started to work a plan of action.
"Okay," I jumped up and strutted up and down, "Okay then, the Vortex Manipulator. Can you fix it?"
Jenny and I both looked down at the bubbling pile of liquid metal that had once been Jenny's Vortex Manipulator. Jenny sent me withering look.
"Okay, then," I sucked in a deep breath, "We just find the closest Time Agent Base and ask for transport home." I said, desperation taking hold.
Jenny picked herself of the floor, dusted herself off, and walked up to me, so that her nose was an inch from mine, "Time Agents don't ferry people around, Vigil. And plus, sometime a Time Base can empty for half a century or more. Face it; you've got us stuck here."
"Me? Your Manipulator is inadequate, and illegal in so many ways," I stormed, thinking of the law books I used to read in my hospital bed, "Under the forty-sixth regulation commandment for the ownership of distribution of transportation devices, all devices must be set to the reverse default setting in the unlikely event of an unwilling and/or unexpected passenger, the device should default to the previous location. Failure to meet this requirement is a criminal offence and will be met with the full force of the law."
"Whatever," Jenny rolled her eyes, "Are you doing a degree in Law or something?"
"No, I used to get bored." I muttered.
"So you read law books?" She squinted.
"Yeah," I said in a defensive tone, "What wrong with that?"
She shrugged, "Nothing, I guess." She sat down on a stool-like object.
"Well," I sighed, "Are we going to waste away in a cupboard the rest of our lives, or are we going to go and see what's out there." I gestured to the door with my head.
"I suppose," she said. I held out my hand to help her up, but she ignored it. I had a feeling it was more out of pride than anything else.
Jenny opened the door carefully; I heard the scuffled of shoes on floor, and the sound of books jiggling around in a rucksack as someone ran past us.
We stepped out, and suddenly I felt relief wash over me. I recognised this corridor. I smooth metal floor, the huge floor to ceiling windows, looking over the rocky valley. We were back at my University; the Luna University, my second home. It looked just the same as I had left it. We hadn't travelled in time at all.
"Oh," I gasped, "Yes!" I turned to Jenny and enveloped her in a hug. I ran off in the direction of my dormitory.
"No," She yelled, trying to grab my jumper, "Vigil, this isn't your …" I didn't hear the last part.
Sliding round corner after corner, I almost tumbled over as I stumbled up the stairs, skimming and ducking in-between annoyed students; I crashed through the door of my room and collapsed on my bed. That's when I saw, the walls were blue … my walls weren't blue they were red. This wasn't my bed. I didn't feel right, and the covers were grey. I leapt off the bed.
"Who are you?" A confused boy was sat at a desk in the corner of the room.
"Sorry, I'm Vigil," I stammered, "I must have got the wrong room, sorry." I backed out of the room slowly. The boy was still frowning at me.
I stepped outside and shut the door. I looked at the number on the door, "Room 113, my room," I sank to the floor outside what had been my room, leaning against the wall opposite.
I called over to a boy down the corridor, "Hey, Mate, what's the date."
The kid looked over, smiled and called back, "eleventh of May," he made to enter his room.
"No," I said, "I meant what year?"
The boy laughed, "What have you been drinking Mate? It's 5127!" The boy disappeared as I hid my head in my hands.
"I did warn you," Jenny's voice echoed toward me. I lifted my eyes to meet hers, expecting to see distain, instead I was met with sympathy.
"I just wanted to hope," I muttered, wiping away a tear angrily.
"That's okay. Hope's the only thing that keeps me going." She slumped down next to me, bringing her knees up to her chin and wrapping her arms around her legs.
"Are we good then?" I turned to her.
"Yeah," She nodded, "If we're stuck here together we may as well try to get along even if you are a bit annoying."
I rolled my eyes, imitating her.
"So, what's next?" I questioned.
"I always did wonder what it would be like to study at University," A spark danced in her eyes.
I smiled. Maybe being stuck in the future wouldn't be so bad after all, "If this turns out to be some horrible practical joke I'm going to kick your butt, Just Jenny."
Please leave just a quick review. Praise or improvements, I don't care.