Mark and Maddy Chapter 29: Future is Past
Author's Note: OK fans! Here is the start of a new adventure that, by your request, is almost totally about Mark and Maddy, who take a temporal adventure unlike anything they ever expected or could have imagined. It might take awhile to get it all out in print. Unlike most stories I write, it will be written in progress. I normally write the whole set of chapters and release them on a weekly schedule. I'm confident in the basic idea for it. I do hope you enjoy this next adventure, which is interwoven with the rest of the world I've created for post-end-of-season Terra Nova.
Future is Past Part 1: Shadows of Time
Mark and Maddy had been missing for over a week. It was like they disappeared without a trace. In point of fact, they had. The last known assignment they had was that Maddy was testing and refurbishing two of the temporal vests, with Mark as the primary 'test pilot'. With Maddy being a time travel hardware and theoretical expert and Mark being a very accomplished time traveler in helping the Travelers get to their home times and locations, there was never any question the project was in good hands. All that Malcolm discovered within hours of their disappearance was that something happened in the secure lab to cause them to disappear in a temporal accident. There had been the acrid smell of electrical arcing, scorch marks on the floor, and signs of fire. This did not bode well for the young pair – travelling in time with their equipment on fire and failing could not end well.
He had traced a series of temporal spikes from both of the vests being refurbished emanating from the secure laboratory prior to their disappearance. Their initial jumps had been only a few minutes each – obviously tests. It was clear that their activity caused those spikes. But after the first round of tests, the big temporal spike happened, and there was nothing more heard from them in the past ten days. As soon as they were discovered missing, within six hours, their family and friends made a thorough search of Terra Nova and the surrounding grounds. Every search came up empty.
Just in case the two lovebirds had something private in mind with a staged disappearance, Elisabeth and Jim 'dropped in' to Outpost B on the third day of their disappearance just to see if the pair had arranged another romantic 'secret rendezvous' together, but found the place empty. Taking advantage of being completely alone, and with Zoe n a slumber party back at the colony with her friends, Jim convinced Elisabeth to take little overnight 'fling' of their own together, which she enthusiastically accepted. Elisabeth joked to Jim that Outpost B really needed to be renamed 'the love nest' from all the activity of that kind that was going on there, just before Jim proved to Elisabeth –to her absolute delight – how right she was.
Despite anxious demands from Jim and Taylor for Malcolm to find Mark and Maddy, the Chief Scientist could not trace what time they had shifted to, as the temporal jammer/sensor just couldn't discern that kind of information – only that it was forward in time, with some undecipherable variations in the time shift alignments. They were very frustrated, as they immediately had considered mounting a rescue with the other vests to bring them from 'whenever' in the future they were. But they had all of future time ahead to try to search, an impossible task to say the least.
The Shannon family, with each passing day, got more and more panicked. They were all taking turns caring for Aaron, and even their friends Steven and Rebecca helped take care of their little friend. After a few days, Aaron was constantly asking for his parents and got progressively more anxious about his mommy not coming home, which was not too far different than anyone else felt.
Jim was particularly fretful about his missing 'little girl'. She'd been married for few years and was a mother for nearly as many, but to Jim she'd always be 12 years old as his 'baby'. They were very close as father and daughter even with her as an adult. Zoe cried for her missing sister. Josh was very anxious for his missing sister's safety, but Skye kept reminding her husband that there was really nothing to be done for now but pray for their safe return.
They all worried about the pair being lost permanently in time, even though they occupied the same space as Terra Nova. While every one thought the time vests were regarded as reliable, no one knew their expected operational lifetime. All of the workable vests got a thorough workout when they deposited the Travelers back in their own times, and of course since they were designed by Lucas, there was the inevitable worry that there were sabotage routines or intentionally weak parts built into the vests that could cause them to fail, stranding the wearer in time.
Malcolm was trying everything he could to trace the couple's temporal whereabouts, but it was all fruitless. The small temporal test hops were traceable, but their unexplainable massive time jump had not been administered or monitored by anyone but Mark and Maddy, and they left no record of how long or why. There had been a storm the day they disappeared and that made what limited tracking data was available to them even more difficult, with the interference from the lightning bolts. But as he adjusted for another sweep, an energy reading unlike what he had ever seen started to climb rapidly.
"Commander, I am getting something really unusual here."
"What is it Malcolm? What's causing it?" Taylor asked.
Malcolm shook his head, "I really can't characterize it."
A call came in from a security patrol, "Commander, there is a glow forming in the middle of the square. It started as a pinpoint but it is twenty foot diameter sphere now. Everyone is scattering."
Taylor turned to Malcolm and demanded an answer, "Is 2149 drilling through?"
Studying the impossible readings, Malcolm postulated, "Well sir, there is something drilling through our time barrier, but it is like nothing I have ever seen from 2149. And there is something very odd about the signature."
Satisfied, Taylor responded back to the security detail, "On my way, Corporal Thomas."
Alicia joked, "Pardon me Taylor if I don't get up and join you."
Taylor shot his newlywed bride of only two weeks a glance over at the security monitoring from. Thanks to Jim Shannon's official ceremony Taylor and Alicia were very happily married. She was taking her near-death recovery very well. She was just glad to be alive, married, and a mother to be. Her baby bump was really starting to show. She was out of her exoskeleton for the day's shift at her chair. Going anywhere in a hurry would have been really hard.
Jim demanded, "I'm coming too, Commander."
"Glad to have you, Jim."
They arrived in the square, and joined the security team with guns drawn. Everyone was in hiding at home or behind barriers. The glow was getting brighter and brighter until they could not dare look at it, as it grew brighter than the sun.
They were worried about radiation, but Malcolm assured them it was just photonic energy and the electromagnetic spectra associated with it was benign. Abruptly it subsided, and they could see what was at the center of the departed glow. Taylor and Jim's eyes grew wide, and they rushed forward to where the center of the glow had been and leaned down to examine what was left behind.
Another urgent call was sent, but to the medical center, and this time by Jim, "Elizabeth. Get here in a hurry! Bring your bag."
"On my way," she replied. Jim's sense of urgency compelled her just to get there and ask questions later.
She grabbed her emergency kit and ran to the square, but with a gasp, held short of her husband and Taylor stooped over something else in the square.
She was both relieved and frightened to see the faces of the unconscious and still bodies of Mark and Maddy lying on the tiles of the plaza, loosely entwined.
She approached them with a portable medical scanner, and could hardly keep calm. She was simultaneously crying in fear of their death-like stillness and satisfaction that they had returned. And very concerned over how they looked.
"Elisabeth?" Jim asked with a catch in his voice.
"Yes, Jim. They are alive," she said.
Everyone was in shock. Instead of Mark's normal fatigues and Maddy's normal top and short skirt and low cut boots she like to wear to please Mark by showing off her pretty dark legs, she wore nearly translucent, gossamer-thin light gray and white full length gown of the finest, lightest material anyone had ever seen. Mark had a similar garment but the tunic was shorter, he had pants that extended to mid calf. Their feet were bare. Elisabeth's materials analyzer disclosed they were made of an unknown fabric. They had a disturbingly angelic look to them. Their heads were shaved.
But that was not the most significant attribute of finding the pair. The two mercifully started to stir and groaned, and they rolled over on their backs.
Jim and Elisabeth were dumbfounded. The young people had only been gone a week and a half, but there before them, showing easily through the very sheer clothing they wore, was a distinct, rounded bump arising from Maddy's stomach. Jim and Taylor said nothing, waiting for Elisabeth to confirm what they saw.
With a very quick close up scan of Maddy's belly, Elisabeth announced to Taylor and Jim with a nervous smile, "Honey, Maddy's almost five months pregnant."
Holding his breath, he asked the obvious question, "How can that be? They've only been gone ten days."
"Jim, dear, they just came back after a week has passed here in Terra Nova. It's obvious they have been gone a lot longer where they were shifted to."
"Yes, Elisabeth, I understand. Is the baby… um…?"
"Yes, absolutely. The little girl is Mark's and Maddy's. The genetic markers are all theirs. And she is in perfect health. Nearly too perfect."
Mark and Maddy were now groggily aware of where they were, and seeing her family, Maddy weakly asked, "Mom?"
"Yes dear, you are home," Elisabeth smiled, and caressed her face, which had the elegant glow of a pregnant woman, despite having no hair. Her beautiful dark eyebrows and long eyelashes were even more striking against that contrast.
Maddy fretted, reached, and searched for Mark's hand as he groaned louder, calling for her, and finding one of his hands, she grabbed it solidly, "I'm here, Mark. We're home!"
"Uhhhnnn. Well, good," he squeezed her hand and leaned over far enough to kiss her lightly.
Elisabeth noted they were calm to the point of being serene in their demeanor. Had this been an ordeal, their metabolisms would be highly elevated.
Elisabeth asked, "Where…where have you been?"
"We've been to… uh… oh dear... Mom and Dad… I have no idea where we've been."
Mark felt helpless with the same empty thought.
Jim blushed, "And, honey, you're… umm…"
Maddy saw her condition, sat up suddenly, looking at her big stomach with very wide eyes. She felt the baby move inside her and immediately clutched her stomach. Despite the huge surprise, smiled at her mom and dad, and then to Mark, "Ohmigosh! I'm pregnant!"
He sat up with her and hugged his wife as he exclaimed, "Maddy! That's wonderful. We've talked about a second child. But how? I don't remember us doing anything. I never forget whenever we… oh… ," he interrupted himself, forgetting Maddy's parents were hearing everything.
Maddy gave Mark a wry grin watching him blush a thousand shades of red, and allowed herself to say teasingly, despite her parents being next to them, "Well Mark, wherever we've been we obviously enjoyed being there a lot."
Jim was a little embarrassed by all this sexual talk with his 'baby' herself making babies, and interjected a barrage of questions, "Well then. Congratulations honey. Mark, I am happy for you both. But thank goodness you are back from… wherever you were. Who did you meet? What are these… uh… outfits? I have never seen anything like this in 2149."
"I really truly wish I did know the answers to those questions," Mark lamented.
"Well kids, we are so relieved you are back and you're OK," Jim knew how perplexed they were to have been gone at least five months and come back knowing nothing, so he smiled and touched their shoulders to soothe them. They relaxed a bit.
Elisabeth added, "Well to be sure all three of you are fine, let's get you back to the med center and check you and that beautiful little girl growing inside you."
Without a pause, Maddy said, "Gladly Mom. We are going to call her Melissa."
"Maddy, how do you know what her name is?" Mark looked with surprise at Maddy.
Realizing what she said and how casually and certain she said it, she stammered, "I… I don't know, Mark. But I know you and I discussed and decided her name. It was your choice - after your sister."
"When did we have that conversation? Where? A minute ago both of us didn't even know you were pregnant."
They just stared at each other with no explanation.
"I'm frightened, Mark," Maddy said with tears in her eyes, and they hugged.
At that point they discovered they had no hair. They were even more shaken as a result.
"I'm right here with you, Maddy. But I don't think we should be afraid, my dear wife. I feel… something… inside me that says we should be very pleased about what happened. Especially about Melissa."
Maddy agreed, "Somehow Mark. I know that, too. I do distinctly feel like we had a truly wonderful time wherever we were."
Elisabeth didn't like the way this was going, "Uhh, kids, I think we need to do a brain scan and see what we can recover of your memories."
"Whatever we have to do, Mom, to get back our experience of being gone… uh… how many days?
"Ten, honey," Jim said very seriously.
Maddy's eyes flew open and panicked right along with Mark, and they shouted together, "Omigosh! Aaron!"
"He's fine, you two," Elisabeth reassured them.
"You can see him just as soon as I find out for sure that you are both OK aside from this… memory loss."
"My mother the doctor! How about some miracle hair growth formula, too?"
"Not while you're pregnant, dear, it's got to grow back in by itself."
"But I kinda like the manly bald look on Mark," she said coyly to her husband, admiring his bald pate.
He blushed and said, "We'll let it all grow back… together."
Jim, Elisabeth, and Taylor helped the reunited young couple up to their feet, and started toward the med center. Their clothes were so diaphanous, there was nothing left to the imagination of anyone who cared to see of the look of bodies. At this point, they didn't care. They were home.
