Tempus Fugitives

Having been led into her body instinct forced me to move my body to her rhythm, slowly, pleasure increasing with every little movement until she could hold back no more. Her body began to move in smaller but sharper movements. I was starting to worry about her but she didn't seem to mind the fact that her body was contorting and convulsing on top of me.

I felt a rising momentum inside me and then my body took control and with much lunging upwards I felt something was leaving my body for hers. My spasms ceased after a short while but hers seemed to continue forever before, panting heavily, her head dropped to my shoulder and she lay there shivering.

"Are you cold?"

"No." And that was all that she said for at least two minutes. "Hmmm, that was the most wonderful feeling that I have ever experienced." It couldn't have been as good as mine. How would I know what she was feeling, I didn't even know and couldn't even begin to understand what it was that I was feeling.

We lay there for some time, my appendage shrinking but still inside her, neither of us wanting to make the first move to separate, our closeness now much more than physical. It seemed to me that we, Jadixna and I, had become the one person, something that would not please the authorities.

I don't know how long we stayed in that position, but it must have been fifteen minutes later that I once more felt that stirring of my appendage. I wasn't the only one to feel the movement, Jadixna's eyes opened with a startled look in them. She urged me over on top of her, and this time it was I who controlled the action, moving slowly in and out of her body, her hips rising to meet me at the start of each stroke. The result was the same as before, we both reached the heights of our feelings at the same instant. Her eyes were closed but the smile on her face told me that she had found the experience every bit as enjoyable as I had.

Her eyes opened ever so slowly, mistily she looked at me, smiling with her whole face, "I'm going to say to you something that people used to say to each other at times like this, I love you."

"If love is this new and wonderful thing that I am feeling right now, I reciprocate."

After what seemed like an eternity we separated. It was getting very late and Jadixna would soon have to return to her own apartment. "It doesn't seem fair that you should come here all the time. How is that you are able to flit about the countryside seemingly at will without being detected?"

"It is something that I discovered while carrying out my research. It had been rumoured for centuries that certain people were able to teleport themselves around the place any time that they felt like it. I dug deeper into the rumours and found that there was an element of truth in them. It was this same skill that we use to get around today. Being able to teleport without the machine has its advantages. You should see what I have managed to find out in my travels."

"I would very much like to learn this skill. Can you teach me?"

"Yes. If you want, I will include the instructions in the next series of discs that I bring over."

"Great! Then, not only will I be able to visit you but it will be fun to be able to wander at will around places that we are not supposed to be in. Now you had better get out of here so that I can get some sleep, we have work to do tomorrow, remember."

"What places that we are not supposed to be?"

"The university. If all of this information is stored there just think of what else might be there?"

"You're right. There are parts of the campus that are off limits to the students which I didn't see the need to explore at the time, but now in the light of what we have talked about, I would dearly love to get into them. There is one very strange thing about those sections and that is the people working there are positively ancient, and I'm not talking forty here, and they don't seem to be governed by the same rules of retirement that we are."

"What departments were they?"

"One was Temporal Physics and the other Spatial Dynamics. They must be working on a Time/Space continuum."

"Go." There was a decided lack of enthusiasm on my part.

"I'll go, but it is good to see you starting to think like me and question life's values."

"Get!"

She got. The next day we went about our duties with a certain detachment, our bodies in gear but our minds in neutral. I sometimes wonder why we had not been made redundant and our jobs taken over by the computers, after all we were processors of information. I suppose that the reason was the fact that the last thing that people wanted after working for twenty years on computers was to be faced by yet another computer telling them how they were to spend the rest of their lives. Little did they know that the choice was made possible by the subliminal messages that they received during the night and this was based on projected occupancy rates, all of which was controlled by the computer.

There was no sign that our secret had been discovered but that wasn't to say that we could relax our precautions. Jadixna's visit to my apartment was worth waiting for. She had taken to coming immediately after the Vidnews, after all our work decreed that we should keep abreast of the latest news and she was not really able to attach her little gizmos before it had finished.

She had by this time managed to stretch her visit to almost the entire night. To make it any longer would be to invite investigation because, while it was possible to fool the sleep monitors unless the sensors were removed immediately an alarm would ring in the Central Database that would certainly warrant an investigation, the last thing that we wanted at this stage.

We were jammed as usual in HERC. "I ran that check. There is no record anywhere in the Databank of anyone from either of those sections having been processed through our department. There are however several mentions in the Obits of former members having died without having retired. The ages given are all under forty and to the casual observer that would be enough."

"But you're not a casual observer any more are you?"

"No I'm not. Do you know what I found out?"

"Let me guess, their ages didn't match any cloning records?"

"How on earth did you guess that?" I was being cynical.

"As soon as we can get you mobile we will pay that section a visit. Now this tape has all the information that you need to start practising your technique. I'll plug it into your subliminal sensor and when I get here tomorrow we will give you are trial run. It might take a few attempts before you get the hang of it but when you feel confident enough we will start our clandestine visits."

Two of the most enjoyable hours that I have ever spent passed before I had a chance to plug in the Discs. As she was leaving, that is after we broke off our embrace but before she physically left, I said to her, "Do you realise that we have grown so close to each other over the last few weeks that I find myself in tune with you mentally, thinking what you are thinking and knowing what you are about to say almost before you say it. If this is some sort of power that we can harness it will come in very handy in that we can talk to each other at work without fear of being detected by the central monitor."

"I seem to recall reading somewhere that just such a power had been attributed to an ancient sect called witches or magicians. It was called telepathy or something like that. If you like I can research this so that we can learn it. As you suggest, it could come in very handy."

Once more she left a void in my life when she returned to her apartment. This void was partly filled the next day at work but we continued to be careful with the way that we communicated with each other lest the monitors detected something unusual in our behaviour.

The days dragged on while the nights sped by. Work was assuming the status of something that we had to do while the evenings together were something that we desperately wanted, not only for our closeness, which we enjoyed, but for the education.

My first attempts at teleporting were, not to put to fine a point on it, a monumental disaster. I found myself in all sorts of weird places and in some interesting situations before I had worked up enough confidence to attempt my first solo trip to Jadixna's apartment.

We had made the trip together on a number of occasions before I tried it myself. It worked! I don't know who was the more surprised, Jadixna or myself. It was lucky that I timed my attempt when I did as she had just finished setting her monitor screening system when I suddenly appeared in front of her.

"You did it! How wonderful!" She squealed as she flung herself into my arms,

"Did you ever doubt it?"

"Never!" she said in an entirely unconvincing voice. "I was waiting for you, you know."

"Sure you were. I caught you completely by surprise."

"I did have some warning. I heard you going over your co-ordinates as you came in."

"Does this mean that you have discovered the secrets of telepathy?"

"Yes. It isn't all that hard once you understand the mechanics of it."

Jadixna explained the direction that her research had taken and gave me yet another disk to take with me.

The following morning I decided to try it to see if I had managed to pick up any of the skill. "Good morning Darling."

The look that I received in response was enough to turn my knees into jelly, it was pure love, an emotion that I was only just coming to terms with.

In my mind I saw her message of love and promise as well as telling me that she not only picked up my message loud and clear but that she had picked up the emotion that had accompanied it.

We practised at every opportunity and by the end of the day were able to transmit and receive with incredible clarity messages without mistake.

Our training period over, it was now time to travel. We chose the Temporal Physics Department at the University for our first visit. If only we could hover and survey the area before landing it would have solved some of the problems that we faced if we suddenly appeared in the middle of something that we weren't supposed to be in the middle of. We chose a clear area inside the perimeter fence from where we could observe the building to check that it was clear before we decided an entry point.

We walked around the building looking for a window through which we could see what was going on inside, and by the sounds coming form inside it was obvious that something was going on. We chose the only darkened window, figuring that if it was dark it would be empty.

We almost got it right. The landing was inelegant to say the least. There was a loud clattering as we hit the floor and it was then that we realised that we had landed in a cleaner's room or something for it was littered with what appeared to be the paraphernalia of the cleaning trade.

The noise in that confined space was deafening so we waited for some time before venturing out of the room, ready to teleport out if anyone came to investigate. No-one came so we left by the door and walked down a passage until it opened out onto a landing overlooking a work area.

There were dozens of people, all clad in the same white coats, hovering around two strange looking contraptions. There were wires dangling out of several apertures, several panels opened revealing rows upon rows of PCB's, solenoids and switches.

The workers connected circuits and tested them before closing off each section. It was obvious that whatever they were building was nearing completion and we were going to be there when they were tested.

"What do you make of that?"

Jadixna thought for a while before replying, "There were a rumour going around that this department was getting involved in time travel. If I'm no mistaken this is proof that the rumours were in fact reality."

"You mean that these things could be Time Machines?"

"I don't think that it is beyond the realms of probability. We will have to wait until they test the machines before we find out what they are."

"Do you think we could use one of these machines?"

"Of course. Since my university days I have always wanted to witness the past at first hand, if this machine gives me the opportunity to realise that ambition, then I would be stupid to turn it up."

"I wonder how many people the machine can hold."

"Knowing the thinking of these university types it will have enough room for two people, if not more. Are you suggesting that you want to come along?"

"Having found you, you don't honestly think that I would allow you to go back on your own, do you?"

"Not afraid that I'll meet someone back there and not return?"

"Of course not." I tried to sound hurt that she should even suggest something so patently stupid. I did not succeed.

"Don't worry. Even if it only held one person you wouldn't lose me because, when I return it would be to now. You wouldn't even know that I had gone."

The screen next to me, out of sight of the client lit up with the information that the client had been a construction engineer on the new Parliament House building and had reached the retiring age at about the same time that the project had reached its much overdue completion. The Vidnews released from time to time during the course of construction had explained that the initial delay was caused by the selection of the site. The strategic considerations had caused some significant argument from the major cities of Sydney and Melbourne who both insisted that they be the city of choice. The government in its wisdom, if one can use those two words in the same breath, chose Adelaide for the simple reason that if a hostile nation decided to attack this seat of power they would have to run the gauntlet of, not only the four hundred kilometre coastal exclusion zone, but have to go past every major city to reach Adelaide. A case where being so isolated had its advantages.

The site chosen was accessed by a side tunnel from the south eastern freeway tunnel that passed under the Mt Lofty Ranges to emerge on the eastern side of Stirling.* The official reason for the side tunnel was that it was as a result of a surveying error. The fact that we all accepted the explanation was a testament to the powers of persuasion of the subliminal messages that we received overnight.

The reason that all of this became necessary was that the nations of the Northern Hemisphere, following the disintegration of the major powers, each obtained through not particularly ethical means, a nuclear capability and when the ethnic differences between them reached the point that they could not possibly get along, all hell, as they say in the classics, broke loose leaving the entire hemisphere blanket by a fall out cloud of horrendous proportions.

*Note: This story was written before the Heysen Tunnels were built, they do not extend as far as Stirling.

The Northern Hemisphere's descent into a century of nuclear winter had begun. The radiation cloud barely touched the northernmost tip of the Australian Continent, but the effects were real enough. The mutations that followed the first season's monsoon which dropped diluted radio-active rain after the holocaust were insignificant when compared to that which emerged from the devastation of Europe, Asia and North America, which had carried the brunt of the warfare.

The first animal to emerge from all of this was the rat. The rat has a remarkable resistance to radiation and disease and was therefore little affected by the situation. It found a ready diet of dead and dying animal and human corpses to which it took with an enthusiasm matched only by its hurry to breed in the face of abundance. The progeny of these survivors were larger and more ferocious than their forebears and, having no natural predators found themselves to be the dominant species.

To be fair to the rat it did have a major role in the overall scheme of things and that was to rid the area of disease carrying and rotting carcasses so that when the first exploration team from Australia arrived in the North there would be little actual cleaning up to do. It wasn't until this occurred that the new breed of rat met for the first time its nemesis.

The Australians, realising that the usual method of rat control would do little to curb the breeding frenzy, devised a unique form of control based on rat habit. They first gathered up all of the rats' food supplies and making huge funeral pyres, burnt the lot. The rat, having no ready supply of food stopped breeding and when it got hungry it turned on its fellow rats until the orgy of self destruction had decimated the rat numbers to the point where they were easily controlled.

The other great survivor was the cockroach and it also bred in large numbers. At first the rats didn't bother with the roaches as they had better food in plenty, but when the food source stopped they swallowed their pride and ate cockroaches for a while. Man introduced the same method to control the roach as he did with the rat and that was to not only deny it food but shelter as well.

Some humans either survived the devastation or ventured back too soon. The Australians coming into the area for the first time were confronted with some pretty horrific mutations. The bodies were contorted into weird angular shapes and the number of limbs and digits varied from person to person.

Some could see while others were blind. Some could hear while others had lost their hearing. The language that they all spoke was a mixture of several different languages and at times seemed to consist of nothing more than a random series of grunts.

They did however make willing workers and their physical deformities were put to great use in performing a variety of tasks that the 'normal' man could not achieve without discomfort. It was hard to say if the mutants felt any sort of discomfort because they were afraid that if they complained their food supply would be cut off.

Australia's mutations were confined in most part to the northern extremities of the continent. There were a few human birth defects and some among the animals especially the crocodiles which scavenged on the rotting carcasses of those that didn't survive. Their mutation was in their size. They grew in both size and ferocity which led the government to ignore the protests of conservationists and introduce a program of heavy culling of the more dangerous salt water crocodile and penning the less aggressive freshwater variety.

As this information was divulged on a 'need to know' basis and I, in my position, didn't need to know, this was all new to me. History didn't exist apart from some vague reference to there having been a war in which much of the world was virtually destroyed which explained why Australia was the dominant country in the world. What happened before the war didn't happen and I was getting the impression that we in Australia weren't all that powerful.

Jadixna of course had learnt all of this at university and I was beginning to understand her dislike for the present world order. She insisted that it was preferable to fail doing something over which you had some control than to have no control over your life at all. Before meeting her I would have disputed this if I had been able to dispute anything but now, with the information that was being presented to me I found myself in agreement with her.

It was now about four weeks after we had 'discovered' the machine and we were hidden in our vantage point overlooking the workshop when we noticed a new sense of urgency among the workers. Hatches and panels were being secured and instruments checked. Then a white coated person climbed into the machine and set about punching numbers into a control panel. After several minutes he gave a signal to his fellow workers which indicated to them that something was about to happen, then he pushed one more button.