Untitled - First Draft

1969

Lucy Wainwright had in no way intended to cause such a commotion when she idly kicked at the loose pebble on Cocoa Beach, and it was only now, a few hours after the event, that she was beginning to come to terms with the embarrassment. As the stone skipped away from the front of her sandal, it headed towards the small family group sitting nearby and proceeded to strike the arm of a dozing child, causing the boy to cry loudly and his parents to vent their anger loudly. For a brief moment, the whole population of the crowded beach had seemed to turn as one towards the screaming child, the yelling adults and Lucy, stood stock still, head hung, her cheeks flushing crimson.

Of course it wasn’t long before her own parents had stepped in to diffuse the situation, but her father, John – in his usual way – had somehow managed to turn the minor incident into a full on scuffle with the father of the boy. Their quarrel was over nothing more than the protection of their own children. Mothers intervened loudly, pulling the men apart, sniping snide comments in both directions. Lucy just stood there, arms by her side, muttering apologies.

Eventually, the situation calmed down and Lucy’s mother, Janice led the three of them away from the scene and off to find another, rare and tiny patch of ground on which they could settle. They were sat now by one of the legs of the pier, down towards the water. The crowd had ceased to pay attention to them and the young family long ago and were now quietly buzzing with excitement, waiting for the main event to begin.

Across the water, the morning sun gleaming brightly on the sea, Lucy could see the small needle of metal stretching up towards the sky. Lucy clutched at her father’s watch and checked the time. It was nine o’clock, 16th July, 1969. Far in the distance, three men were sat atop the most powerful rocket known to mankind, waiting to shoot for the Moon. She brushed her long, strawberry blonde fringe of hair away from her eyes, and pulled down her pink sun hat to shade her eyes.

The launch was near, Lucy knew, but she was struggling to care. She knew this trip would be a mistake from the moment her parents had suggested it; she could have been back at home in Arkansas with her boyfriend Alan, sneaking out to one of the parties her friends had no doubt organised while their own parents were away. Lucy’s own parents had, of course, insisted, and there was little she could do once they had made up their minds.

It would be spectacular, she knew, and there was nothing boring about sending men to the Moon; she just wished she didn’t have to experience it with her parents. Photographers and television cameras littered the crowd and, knowing her rotten luck, one of them would show her image, for all the world to see, of the bored young girl sat sulking next to her boring parents. She could well imagine now, all her friends sat drinking the alcohol bought by older siblings and smuggled into houses, laughing at her. Even worse, they would have caught her kicking a stone at a toddler, the scuffle of limbs as her father fought for her honour, and the flushed expression and quiet apologies she could only muster with some struggle. She was sixteen years old and shouldn’t have to put up with this shit.

The mixture of embarrassment and rage welled up and she knew she had to make her excuses. Lucy asked her father for some money and headed off towards one of the many refreshment stands littering the top of the beach, their long queues snaking wearily in random directions like the legs of an injured spider. It would take an age to get to the front, especially for someone of small, slender frame like herself, and would no doubt be jostled and pushed by impatient adults. But at least she would be spared her father’s talk of rocket fuel and computer programmes. If she was lucky she would be stuck there right up to the launch and could watch and wonder in the solitude she craved.

The bright sun pierced the near-perfect sky, and already the sand kicked up by her sandals was hot enough to burn at her feet. She ducked and weaved her way through the crowd, struggling to find patches of beach on which to walk, and she made sure to give the young couple and their son a good, wide berth. All were dressed in the bright, primary colours of the day, while excited kids built model rockets in the sand.

Had she been paying more attention, she would have noticed that perhaps every single father on that beach was doing the same thing her own was now, boring the rest of the family with statistics and flight plans. She doubted, however, that any of the kids or teenagers here knew anything about the way she felt right now.

Lucy took her place in the queue, summed up whether to buy a lemonade or a cola, and waited. Above the hustle of the crowd she could hear the disembodied voice narrating the countdown in a dull monotone. She hadn’t noticed the withered and frail old lady approaching her with a look of triumphant joy and received quite a start when then lady place a slender, fragile hand on her arm. She turned to face the lined, worn face, her skin bronzed but beaten by the years, and recoiled immediately upon the sight of her.

“Can I help you?” she asked abruptly.

The woman smiled a thin, aged smile and hesitated as she took a step back. “I’m sorry,” the woman said slowly. She must have been about a hundred, Lucy thought in terror, but her voice was smooth and unbroken, not like her own grandmother who by this time was struggling to talk through cracked tones. “I saw the commotion down on the beach. I thought you looked like you needed cheering up.”

“I’m fine,” Lucy said, turning back towards the stand.

“Terribly embarrassing for you, no doubt,” the woman went on. “I do hope it doesn’t spoil your enjoyment of the day.” Lucy remained quiet, hoping the old hag would go and bother someone else. “Quite an event down here today, isn’t it? I bet you’re excited for the launch? Not long now…”

Lucy sighed as she realised the only way to deal with the woman was to humour her whilst she waited to buy a drink. She wasn’t overly keen on old people; she could never understand how bright young minds like hers could decay into something so repulsive and was determined, like most people of her age, that it would never happen to her.

“My parents brought me here,” said Lucy. “If I’m honest I’d rather be at home.”

The woman looked momentarily surprised, before her face settled back into that thin smile. “I can understand that,” she said. “Nothing worse than following the old folk around when you could be at home with your friends, eh?”

Lucy huffed loudly. You’re not wrong there, she thought.

“It’s not that I don’t find it interesting,” Lucy explained. “Space is cool, I know that. It’s just that I’d rather be watching it with my friends back in Arkansas. And besides, they haven’t even landed on the Moon yet, we don’t even know if they’ll make it.”

The woman was looking out across the water at the Saturn V perched upright, steam starting to bellow from underneath as the final pre-launch countdown stages prepared the giant engines for launch. “Something tells me they’ll make it,” she said quietly.

The queue had moved on and Lucy managed to force her way towards the front. She ordered a cola, handed over her father’s cash, and was disappointed to turn and find that the lady was still there. Lucy considered making a dash for the beach to get away, but it was either this old lady or her father’s dull trivia. She was between a rock and a boring place.

There was a sadness in the woman’s eyes, too, and Lucy found herself strangely drawn to her. She was old, ancient even, and Lucy wondered what stories she would have to tell when she reached such an age. It was too early to know. The woman was caught in a wistful moment of awe as the countdown entered the final few minutes. Maybe she would be able to tell her grandchildren, and anyone else who would listen, about the men living on the moon bases and how she'd been there when it all began.

Abruptly, the woman roused from her daydreaming and smiled to note that Lucy was still there. There were tears in her eyes, but she wiped them away quickly and turned Lucy back towards the beach with a gentle touch of the elbow.

“Tell me, young lady,” she said as they walked slowly along the promenade. “What do you think you'll be when you're older?”

Lucy shrugged. “Not sure,” she sniffed petulantly. “Mom and Dad want me to go to College to study mathematics, but I'm not so sure. I kinda wanna get into sports or something, I'm really good at hockey and-” The woman was chuckling. “Hey, what's so funny?”

“Oh, nothing special,” she replied. “Just thinking about when I was a young girl of your age, full of hopes and dreams about this and that and, you know what? My life turned out nothing like I had expected and I ended up loving every minute of it.”

“What did you do?” asked Lucy.

“Oh, this and that.” They stopped at the line of the beach and the woman squeezed Lucy's arm again. “The important thing is that you enjoy what you do and that you make sure you try to make a difference. Like those men up there on top of that rocket, waiting to land on the Moon, and do the other things...” She trailed off. The tears were again welling up into her eyes and she began coughing loudly. She dabbed at her mouth with a tissue and Lucy thought she saw blood.

Behind them, the tannoy began the final minute of the countdown and the noise of the beach grew louder and more excited. “No matter,” the lady said. “I think you've heard enough from a silly old codger like me. You'd best run along to your parents.” She wagged a finger. “Just remember, they may be boring, but what you're about to witness here today is something special. Enjoy it and make the most of it. You never know where it might lead you.”

Lucy smiled faintly and suddenly realised that it had been a whole few minutes since she had thought about the incident with the pebble and the child. Her mood had calmed considerably and for the first time since they'd left Arkansas she suddenly felt like she could take it all in.

“Well, thanks,” Lucy said, and she meant it. “I'd best get back to the folks before launch or Dad will kill me.”

With that, she darted back across the sands and made her way back to the pier where her father chastised her briefly for taking so long. It didn't matter.

The countdown reach zero, and the crowd cheered wildly as the rocket slowly caught alight and began its slow ascent past the gantry and up towards the stars. The thunderous noise hit shortly after, a rumbling Lucy could feel in her legs and up to her chest. It was the most powerful and awesome display of engineering magnificence that she had ever witnessed, and nothing – not the television interviews, the numerous magazine articles, nor her father's own steady monologue of facts – had prepared her for just how good it was.

She grinned wildly and all of the troubles of the morning completely disappeared under the shroud of thunder from across the water. Lucy turned away only once, to check to see if the old lady was watching back on the promenade, but she had gone. The rocket cleared the tower and gathered pace towards the Moon.

2014

Pulling the darkened visor on her helmet firmly down, Lucy Wainwright gripped hard at the control stick and set her sights firmly on the altimeter as her plane began its slow descent back to the earth. She had spent her entire working career devoted to the research and application of experimental aviation, but she knew that this would be her last flight. She was already pushing sixty years old, and it was a wonder that the flight controllers had left her carry on this long, where most ordinary pilots would have been forced to retire long ago. But she was no ordinary pilot – she knew it, they knew it – and it didn’t quell her sadness that she would no longer get to fight her way through the sky under her own devices.

It helped that this particular mission had been a resounding success, of course, for it was also the final flight of the X122 she was currently riding. Likely that no ordinary citizen would ever see this plane in its current form, but the technological applications that would no doubt stem from it would have a lasting impact on commercial aviation for decades to come, and that filled her with professional and personal pride.

Her husband Jim would just be happy to see her back on the ground again. He had been bothering her for years about finally retiring from such a dangerous business, although he appreciated how much joy her work brought her, and tolerated it for the most part. Jim was down there now, eagerly sat beside the flight controllers, no doubt bothering them once more with questions and querying the minutiae of data streaming from the plane. He was an engineer himself, so he was allowed, and Lucy smiled at the thought of the exasperated faces in the flight room right now as she spun the plane into a heroic roll.

Down at forty-thousand feet, the voice of Al Roberts chided her. “Best we keep this sensible, Lucy,” he said in his soft, Southern drawl. “We got Jim down here sweating piss to make sure you’re home safe tonight and we don’t wanna let a man down.”

Lucy smiled and shook her head softly; they were nothing if not predictable down there. “Roger that Al,” she said brightly. “Just making sure you were still paying attention.”

“We’re good,” Al chuckled. “Lets just stick to the flight plan, thanks.”

“Roger that.”

Thirty-thousand feet, and pushing Mach three. It seemed like only a few minutes ago that the X122 was doing Mach 8 at one-hundred thousand feet. What a ride it had been, the outer shell of the plane rattling like the inside of a rocket, trimming the edge of the atmosphere. Here she could see the curvature of the Earth and the blackness of space and she was reminded of her childhood dreams, watching rockets leave the Earth and land men on the Moon.

It seemed like a world away, but up there, on the edges of the planet, she once again felt sixteen years old, full of hope. The X122 itself wouldn't ever have enough thrust to lift it out further, into space, but 2014 was a remarkably different place to 1969.

Space exploration was being commercialised; getting into space was the easy part, designing smooth, capable systems that could operate at such speeds and altitudes necessary would mean the difference between cramped capsules and luxury travel. If people didn't feel comfortable, they would never want to go into space, and the whole thing would be for nothing. The recent breakthrough in quantum computing had made the world of difference down on the ground, but this plane was designed to test it and its computational abilities in the most extreme of environments.

As she dropped her altitude to a mere twenty-thousand feet, Al buzzed in her ear once more. “Lucy, this is Al, we need you to check something for us?” He sounded worried, and that wasn't like Al at all.

“Go ahead, Al,” she called back.

“Um, we would like you to make a visual check of your surroundings,” said Al. “Can you identify another aircraft flying in close formation to your east? We're picking up a blip on the radar; its probably just a systems malfunction, but better safe than sorry, over.”

“Roger.” Lucy looked all around her but, as expected, saw nothing. The clouds were forming all around her now, but it was otherwise clear skies. There was certainly unlikely to be any more planes in this airspace; in spite of the scientific intentions of the X122 project, they were in military air. This had often been the case in experimental aviation, and even in the early days of space travel, the scientific endeavour forced into a sometimes strained relationship with the intentions of the military.

“That's a negative, Al,” she reported. “Nothing up here but blue-”

The sudden shudder and rumble of the cockpit cut her mid-sentence and focussed her attention back on the instrument panel. From nowhere, the X122 was shaking like hell. Lucy could barely see the instrument panel, although she could make out clearly that her heading was straight and true and her airspeed hadn't dropped. She'd never encountered a pocket of turbulence this severe so suddenly, but it was the only explanation.

Fumbling her hand across the cockpit towards the panel, straining through her tumbling vision, Lucy reached for a switch to engage the quantum computer systems in keeping the plane level. She was an accomplished stick pilot and felt confident she would be able to wrestle back control quickly, but she was here to test the plane's computer systems; what better way to test it than to ask it to make millions of calculations all at once.

Lucy flicked the red switch, engaged the computer, and immediately the vibrations ceased. She made a quick scan of the instruments and realised that the computer had actually done it; right now it was calculating thousands of variables at once and controlling hundreds of individual components of the X122 simultaneously, keeping it perfectly straight and level. It was remarkable stuff, and while the thrill of the turbulence had made her heart pound – and knowing that such technology could effectively end the careers of her peers and colleagues - she still allowed herself a smile at the brilliance of it all.

It didn't last. Three seconds after she had engaged the quantum computer, Lucy found herself and the X122 plunged headlong into a nosedive. The g-forces of the sudden dive knocked her back into her seat and she was suddenly unable to move her arms to grab at the stick. She was frozen, pinned down by the force of the plunge. She could hear Al yelling in her ear but couldn't even open her mouth.

Her eyes fixed on the altimeter. Ten-thousand feet.

The X122 pierced through the bottom layer of clouds and through blurring eyes Lucy could see the hard Texas ground rising up to meet her. The edges of her vision were closing in and she could feel herself losing consciousness as she struggled to breath. She struggled in vain to reach for the emergency ejection handle below her seat, and wondered briefly why the automatic systems hadn't cut in yet. It was clear by now that they were unlikely to do so. Lucy was trapped in a plummeting tin can.

Five-thousand feet.

She thought about Jim, and their children, and every good thought that had ever crossed her mind came all at once, and she realised she was not afraid to die. Lucy had spent her life strapping herself to dangerous machines, cheating death more than once. She was mentally prepared, but she knew how hard it would be on those who loved her, those who had suffered through countless flights and sleepless nights as they waited for her return.

Two-thousand feet, and still accelerating.

There was nothing she could do about it now; she was headed directly into a large, barren area of scrub land out in the middle of nowhere, head first. There was a black, swirling shape on the ground that she could barely make out, like a large sheet of tarpaulin strung out across a field.

One-thousand feet. The ground rose up and a sharp flash of bright light overcame her.

Lucy Wainwright closed her eyes and thought about Cocoa Beach...

2241

Investigation followed inquisition followed inquiry followed interrogation; the Earth Defence Association had been struggling to cope with the situation for more than thirty years now, so none of the current débâcle came as a shock to anyone, not least to Lucy Wainwright.

Though her hair was thin and grey, her body withered, she felt that her mind remained as sharp as ever and was giving the young upstart in the suit a run for his money. He had brought her into his office here in the heart of the EDA with grand ambitions of being the man who would finally get to the bottom of this mess, but instead he was stumbling and tying himself in metaphorical knots attempting to untangle the web that had been the past thirty years.

His name was Kenzie Rayner and he was some sort of senior bureaucrat within the organisation. Clearly he had received instruction from on high to be the one to come up with the answers that had escaped them all – herself included – for so long. Lucy felt sorry for him, in a way, since he was only doing his job. That didn't, however, excuse their treatment of her, once again.

She had been in her apartment, sleeping, when the men in dull grey suits had come to quietly take her away. She was alone, of course, as she had been these many years since she arrived here, and she was scared when the door opened. They hadn't knocked, they had simply let themselves in. The general feeling within the EDA, it seemed, was that since she was not of this time, she was therefore denied all rights to be treated like a proper citizen.

That hadn't stopped her making the most of the past few decades, though. Whichever way you looked at it, and whatever accident had brought her forwards in time more than two hundred years, it was an interesting time to live. In her younger days she had imagined the far future to involve Moon bases and missions to Mars and the moons of Jupiter or Saturn, but mankind had remained grounded too long and had forgotten about the stars. Until she arrived, that was.

The xenophobic sense of isolation that pervaded the planet when she had first arrived was soon overtaken by a childish sense of wonder at the 'astronaut' who had crash landed in the lake. In truth, Lucy had only ever touched the edge of space, but it served her well not to discuss the specifics, and she had quickly gained meaningful and exciting employment within the National Space Organisation, under the careful and watchful eye of the EDA.

The constant surveillance mattered little while she was out there in the world, making a difference, but at home, in the apartment she had been appointed to, she used to weep and pray to return to her own time. Too much had changed, and much of it not for the better, not least the complete erosion of civil liberties. To her, now, Earth was lost; getting off this forsaken rock was the only way to escape.

Such things were no longer her concern, however. She had walked away from the work, happy in the knowledge that things were progressing nicely. As long as the outside organisations were kept at arm's length, the NSO was on the right path, she felt. She was old, and tired, and ready to let it all go. The EDA had other ideas, of course.

Rayner had reached an impasse in his own logic. His brown hair, sat atop a round, squat head, was slick with sweat and his brow was furrowed as he scoured the records on the screen in front of him, hoping for some sort of clue as to what it was he should do next. Lucy waited patiently until, at least, he slammed the file closed and threw his arms up in the air in exasperation. Lucy smiled a thin smile.

“I'm beat,” he said, shaking his head. He folded his thin arms in front of him across the desk and leaned forwards. “In the past thirty years, we've managed to ascertain the means with which you came to be here in our time – the quantum technology is close to practical applications – but what we still can't figure out is why? Why you, why now?” He threw himself back in his plush chair and swivelled gently back and forth on its base.

“I've said all along that I barely think it matters,” Lucy said, again encouraging the EDA to drop the question of why and to simply embrace the fortune it had brought their society. No such luck.

“Of course it matters!” he exclaimed. “The computer aboard your plane knew what it was doing. Its well documented by now that that day brought Earth its first visitation with the Others; your plane was almost flying in formation with them for a brief moment. Your plane should have taken evasive action if it realised something was out there, but instead it chose to plunge itself directly into the heart of the anomaly that had opened up beneath you. If we are ever to harness the true potential of the technology we need to know that its going to be truly reliable. Your plane disappearing from your time set quantum computing back a hundred years; everyone assumed it hadn't worked and it was considered too dangerous to continue with.”

He shook his head again, rose from his chair and waved a hand to clear the smart wall onto a view of the streets below them. Lucy was used to it all by now, really. The desperate attempts to draw her into a philosophical argument; the accusations of her being some kind of agent sent to Earth by the Others would no doubt follow, although this had been cleared up with various DNA and historical checks many times before.

The problem with the EDA is that they were so consumed by the fear of failure with the quantum project that they were holding themselves and the human race back from one of the greatest discoveries; time travel. Lucy had no idea how it worked, and didn't have the faintest idea why her plane had chosen to take the action it did when faced with such circumstances. She knew that it definitely have something to do with the Others, but since no contact had been made since, nor any further visitations, they had no idea of the intentions.

Humans had become scared of the one thing they were best at; science and technology. This was why they had grounded themselves as a species and why Rayner here was still dealing with clumsy, cumbersome computers. Down on the street, the motorcar was still rumbling on by – albeit ones now powered by hydrogen cells rather than the gasoline of her day – and the people were still stopping in at the shop to buy newspapers. Newspapers! Even back in 2014 the printed medium was dying, for better or worse, but here they were two centuries later, and people didn't know any different. It was quite remarkable and utterly disappointing, and she was lucky that those in charge of the NSO weren't blinded by such concerns.

Their meeting continued for a few more hours, and eventually petered out into frustration on Rayner's part, and amusement on hers. As she left his office, she heard him patch into the office of his superiors and begin to report that he, too, had failed to get anything out of her. That was because she knew as little as he did; she was just more willing to accept it.

It certainly didn't matter any more. She struggled back to her apartment, unaided by the goons who had dragged her here, and slumped down into her comfortable chair and dimmed the lights just so. Tiredness was overcoming her more frequently now, and she had begun to suspect long ago that her final days were upon her.

This is where her contacts within the NSO had come in most handy. It was here that the work on quantum time travel was gaining most ground – harnessing the concepts that a particle of matter was unburdened by the dimension of time and could theoretically exist in two places at once. That was as much as Lucy understood, really, but the best thing about scientists was that they were a proud and often impatient lot, who just wanted to see their theories or inventions come to fruition, often before it was safe or practical to do so.

So it was that here, in her dark apartment, Lucy Wainwright found herself holding in her fragile hands the object the engineer had described only as The Device. It was small, and spherical, and surprisingly soft as she rolled it around in her hands. Small lights blinked across its equator and Lucy wondered if they were just for show or had any practical application. Most likely the former, but it added to the effect.

At both poles of the sphere sat two small red buttons – buttons were always red – and she stroked them gentle with her thumb and middle finger now. Outside she could hear the laughter of the children down the hall from her, and the general hum of humanity, such as it was. Part of her admired the people of this age for coping gracefully with living in the graveyard of ambition; the other part hoped desperately that the return to space exploration that she had helped initiate would inspire them to bigger and better things and ignite their spirits. Only time would tell, and she was running out of hers.

Lucy Wainwright lay down on her chair, fumbled for the buttons on the Device, closed her eyes, and thought of Cocoa Beach...

1969

The Device had deposited her miles from the Beach, and she was struggling to walk. Most people were too preoccupied with their own attempts to get there that they were failing to notice the frail old lady hobbling down towards the shore and offer any assistance. In her memory, the people of this time were more kind and caring to each other, but as they stampeded past her without a second glance she grumbled quietly to herself about manners.

Lucy Wainwright was lost and confused. It had been the best part of a century since she was here, at Cocoa Beach, and she was struggling to remember where it was that her parents had dragged her all those years ago. Roads, buildings, cars, all looked the same, although the smell of the hot dog stands and the sea brought back vivid flashes of memory.

It had been her plan all along to return to this place, as soon as she'd figured it out, of course. The engineers at the NSO had been helpful in designing the test with this time and destination in mind. As she hobbled towards the beach, she wondered how they would know if the Device had been successful, but she guessed it mattered little to her. No doubt Rayner and those who followed him at the EDA would spend another thirty years trying to work out where she had gone, but by then, with luck, the NSO would already be on their way to the stars. She had come full circle, and there was only one thing left to do.

The beach was crowded, but out across the water, she could see what it was they had all come here to see. The Saturn V shone like a beacon in the sunshine. It was mankind's first, best hope for progress, and even though the Apollo missions were a resounding success, they weren't the doorway to the stars that many had hoped. But still, everything had to start somewhere.

Along the promenade, she caught sight of a familiar looking refreshment stand, near to the pier. It caught her cold and she stood stock still as it all came back to her. She couldn't remember what it was the old lady had said that had inspired her so, but it didn't matter, for she was here now and whatever she would say would be what happened. There was no changing history.

A child started crying. Her eyes flooded now with tears, Lucy Wainwright turned towards the sound. The commotion had already begun. There was her mother, pulling at the back of her father as he tried to battle with the indignant man. She had almost forgotten what they looked like.

And there, towards the back of the scene, stood a thin, short, strawberry-haired young girl looking mortified. She was beautiful, for one so young, her flushed cheeks hiding the freckles on her nose. It had been too long since she looked that young.

Across the water, the Saturn V and the Apollo 11 astronauts it would eventually fly to the Moon continued its ponderous countdown to glory.

Lucy Wainwright kicked idly at a nearby pebble, and waited...