Chapter Four

"Rift? What kind of rift?" Jenny asked. She looked around anxiously as the alarms blared. Red lights were flashing and the room began to shake.
"No time to explain," Jack insisted. "The rift's splitting wide open." He dashed to a nearby computer just as a gust blew through the room, picking up files on the desks and sending them flying around the room.
"Jack..."
Jenny felt a sudden need to be near someone. She was uneasy about the change in setting and although something about Jack made her uncomfortable, she accepted that it was safer to be near him. She braced herself against the wind, pulling Roland's jacket tighter around her, and walked towards the computer that Jack was staring intently at.
"Normally the rest of my team would be here monitoring the rift, but they're away on other business," Jack explained, briefly glancing over his shoulder at Jenny. "We weren't expecting any activity; the rift has been calm for weeks now."
"Is it a time rift, like a window between dimensions?"
"Yes. Why do you ask?" Jack was frowning severely at numerals and letters darting across the screen.
"I came through a time window in a shuttle. It might be dangerous to have two windows so close together." Jenny's ponytail had come loose and the wind tossed her hair violently about her, blocking her view of the screen. "I came through the portal with a friend, but when I landed he wasn't in the shuttle. Is it possible that the rift created a disruption in time, sending him somewhere else?"
"Or somewhen else, yes," Jack shouted over the wind. "If we close the rift it should make it easier for you to find your friend."
"Is it normal for there to be this much wind when the rift opens?"
"Not this much, no, but it's not really normal for the rift to open at all. There must be a storm on the other side of the rift."
As Jack spoke a crack appeared in the rift generator, letting a wave of seawater into the room. "So the rift doesn't open into a vortex? Where does it open to?" Jenny asked.
She warily watched the water rise for a moment before wading to the generator. She examined the opening, trying to determine how to close it. Jack treaded over to her after putting something in his coat pocket. "Evidently somewhere in the ocean," he replied. "The date changes every time, but it's usually the past. Last time it was the 1940s.
"Is there a setting on that fossil computer of yours that can close the rift?" Jenny asked as another wave poured through the opening, drenching both of them from head to toe.
"No, but I was able to seal off this room to prevent the rest of the headquarters from flooding."
Another gust blew through the room as the rift opened wider. "Well, that's brilliant!" Jenny scoffed. "Now we'll drown." She gripped the edge of the generator to keep from being swept away. Jack just managed to keep his footing.
"No we won't, we can go up the lift and close your portal to stop the reaction."
"That can only be done from the other side! We'd be trapped in the 61st century and you'd have no way of knowing if it closed the rift."
The water was slowly rising above their waists now. The computer across the room was done for and most of the files would be illegible should anyone manage to recover them. Fortunately, Jack had managed to turn off the local electricity to keep any wires from electrocuting them.
"What! What kind of time traveler uses portals that can only be controlled from one side?" Jack asked incredulously.
"Now is clearly not the time to throw around insults," Jenny said, gesturing to the rift and rising water level. "So are we going to go up the lift or through the rift?"
"Through the rift? How is that even an option?"
"You said the rift was like my time window. If it can't be closed from this side, we might be able to close it from the other side. Would you rather be trapped four thousand years in the future, or a few centuries in the past?"
"A few centuries? Where did you pull that figure from?"
"Shut up and trust me. The sea smells younger."
Jack looked nervously at his left arm, where a watch-like device was strapped to his wrist in a leather casing, and then back at Jenny. "Let's go through the rift," he said after some consideration. "It's a shorter distance to travel."
Jenny smiled widely. "I hoped you'd say that. I love a good adventure."
The rift opened another several inches and they could see the surface of the ocean on the other side. A hint of daylight could be seen through the balckened clouds filling the sky. A beam of light settled on a solitary ship that gradually approached the rift. It swayed treacherously in the gale and turned just enough for them to see its name: 'The Royal Charter'.
"Oh, please, no. Not that," Jack groaned. He put his left arm through the rift and looked at the numbers on his device. He read them aloud in a solemn voice. "The 25th of October, 1859. Four in the afternoon."
"What does that mean? Is that date special?"
"It means that we have twenty hours to close this rift or one of the greatest hurricanes in Wales' history will happen all over again."