The Curse of Roberta's Purse-Chapter 7

Before Roberta and Nyota Uhura stepped out of the turbo lift, history reset itself. Uhura suddenly found herself back at her post on the Enterprise Bridge, all their memories of recent events wiped clean. She frowned in puzzlement for a moment, wondering how she got there, having just had breakfast. The last thing she recalled now was getting ready for her duty shift. The feeling that she was missing something quickly faded and she chalked it up to morning fogginess.

Roberta found herself back in her brown stone apartment in her bed, also with the feeling that she was missing something, but she wasn't sure what that was. Sighing with puzzlement, she sat up, shook her head with dismay, and shrugged off the strange feeling as some sort of weird dream that she couldn't remember. She stared for a moment at her orange and pink ensemble with the black sash that she had laid out the night before, draped over a wing-backed green chair in the left hand corner of her bedroom. Her alarm clock had not yet gone off, so she knew she had time to get ready for her new job as a secretary for a new firm that purportedly manufactured encyclopedias. Her new employers were very mysterious, and seemed worried about something as they gave her a slip of paper with an address to a high rise apartment building on 68th street. She got up, sighed, and dressed in the outfit she had laid out the previous night.

She made it to the subway and sat across from a harried brunette young mother with two small children; a boy and a girl. There had recently been a rash of violence in the city concerning the assassination of Martin Luther King the day before, and the young mother had instructed her children to stay low, offering them a bit of candy to keep them that way. That's the last thing Roberta saw.

Moments later, she found herself standing in some sort of warehouse office. Her little orange purse that she was holding moments ago was now on a table in front of her; for a few seconds, emitting a strange glow. It had never done that before and she stared at it in puzzlement. She felt different and looked down at herself. She was no longer wearing her cute little mini dress with the black sash. She was now wearing jeans and a plain white button-front top. On her feet, replacing the matching flats she had chosen, were brown penny loafers. Her hair was longer as well, brown in color, and she realized that she had somehow been transformed into someone else. There was a beady-eyed older gentleman with wire-rimmed spectacles standing across the small table, regarding her with a look of puzzlement. She saw a young woman around her age, standing beside the man in the wire-rimmed specs. When they found out who she was, the other girl introduced herself as Claudia Donovan. The older man was named Artie, and told her that she was over forty years in the future, knowing that she had no idea who they all were, having no memory of their previous encounter. Roberta looked them over, mumbled a 'nice to meet you', only half believing that she was in the future, and wondered out loud about Claudia's "skunk stripe" in her plain brown short hair. She was informed it was some sort of weird fashion which began in the nineteen eighties; an era in which there was apparently a form of music called punk rock. A younger gentleman stepped up from behind her, smiled as if he knew who she was, and introduced himself as one named Peter Lattimer. He welcomed her to this strange place, calling it Warehouse 13.

Myka had offered to go back in time to fix what went wrong when Claudia had switched places with Roberta. She knew nothing about the episode "Assignment: Earth", so Peter let her borrow his boxed set of second season DVD's. He was a consummate die-hard fan of the original Star Trek, knowing the episode "backwards, forwards, upside-down and sideways" and said it was one of his favorites. After viewing it for the first time, Myka could see why. She no longer wondered why there were still so many fans of this, to her, long-dead science fiction show. Peter wished he could take Roberta's place this time, but, being a man, he would have to stay in the year 2010. He envied Myka as the switch took place and wished her luck. He smiled at Claudia, now realizing that since history had reset itself, she no longer suffered from the concussion, caused by his carelessness with the football he had played with ever since he was recruited for the warehouse. He also realized that, since history had reset itself, the good doctor named Dupree that Mrs. Fredericks had called for Claudia had vanished. The white people in the room seemed more at ease with her presence, even though she had a habit of appearing at odd times in the warehouse. She was still there because she had been informed that the real Miss Uhura was one of her descendants. Myka needed to acquaint herself with the episode so she wouldn't make any mistakes upon her arrival. She had to play the role of Roberta straight so the Enterprise would not destroy the nuclear warhead and would not be detected by the Earth's inhabitants.

Myka soon found herself seated in a subway car, facing a young mother with two little children. She had given them some Life Savers candies, instructing them to keep their heads low. Apparently, there had been a rash of violence lately in the city after the assassination of Martin Luther King the day before. Myka realized that Claudia had been incorrect about the season. It was early spring, 1968. It was still chilly outside, which is probably why Claudia mistook the season for late fall. Luckily for Myka, she was familiar with New York City, already having many undercover assignments in the city as a secret service agent. She had memorized the famous address for Gary Seven's high-rise apartment building and the supposed encyclopedia publishing firm. She also thought that that was a lame cover story that Seven's ill-fated agents had come up with. She also looked down at herself to make sure that she was in the right body. She was and she smiled, thinking that she was going to enjoy this era. It seemed simpler and easier to manage. She knew that it was an era before cell phones, texting and personal computers, but she often wondered what it would have been like to not have all those fancy gadgets that she had grown accustomed to. Also, now knowing more about "Assignment: Earth" than Claudia, she felt confident about her mission. She was sure that she could play it straight and pretend to be the real Roberta Lincoln, stopping the series of events that would result in the ridiculous notion that black people were from outer space and that the Earth was about to be invaded by beings with advanced technology. She was now well-versed in the politics of this era, having Googled some information about the first man-made satellites the Enterprise may have encountered while establishing an orbit around Earth. She now knew of the hysterics surrounding the launch of Sputnik by the Russians, and realized that the people of this era were a bit paranoid about a Russian invasion. The last thing they needed was another worry about space aliens.