The Sphere: A Journey In Time (2 page)

He nodded and drank from his mug as I gave a slight bow, wiped my hands on my apron and headed back to my room. Mary, I knew, was still outside in the gardens, and Anthony was out tending to the horses. I felt guilty abandoning William to leave him alone in the kitchen. With such a heavy heart he could use some company and he would need a refill soon. Perhaps, I thought, I could wait till Mary came back in. No. No excuses. It was simpler to leave now without having to talk to her. She would want to know what I was up to.

I climbed the stairs slowly and soberly. My thoughts kept going back to William. I knew about his son's death, my research had told me as much. But no one talked much about his relationship with his children. People loved to sensationalize his life, but in the end he was not much different from most fathers. I thought back to the various fictional depictions of him that I ran across in my studies. None of them had been remotely accurate. But then a devoted husband and family man didn't lend itself to a very sensational sort of movie or book. The truth rarely did.

I paused on the stairs. There was so much we still didn't know about him. I sighed and continued my trek upstairs.
It's not my job
, I chanted to myself with every step. To have such power and have such restrictions placed on oneself at the same time was sometimes painful. But then I counted myself lucky. I had just spent four months living with one of the greatest writers in history. It was an honor. It was enough. It had to be enough.

I got back to my room and surveyed my sleeping area. Nothing laying about was technically mine. There were things I had purchased upon arrival, but none of that would be coming back with me. I always wondered what happened after I left. What stories would they make up about my sudden disappearance? What would they do with the belongings I left behind? Perhaps given our last conversation, William would think I had left to make a better life for myself.

I knew better than to ask a planter what they might find out about events after my departure when they came back to deliver the evidence. The staff was right to keep us as segregated as possible. It kept things strictly business. Once I left here that would be the end of my association with this place, and I couldn’t request information from them.

I removed my apron, folded it gently, placed it on the bed and smoothed it out. I straightened the brush on my bedside table and stood back to look at my space. It was barren and familiar.

I removed the string from my neck for the very last time and unlocked the chest. I pulled out my journal, opened to the first clean page, dated it, and wrote simply, "It's Hamnet."

I replaced the journal and pen inside the chest and dropped the key on top of them. Then I dug past the few possessions inside towards the bottom. I pulled out a small square velvet box and released the clasp to open it. Inside was a small silver sphere that I removed and placed on my bedspread. I replaced the box inside the chest and closed the lid. The chest was small enough that I could grasp it under my left arm and pick up the sphere with my right hand.

I took one last look at the room I had shared with Mary for the past four months. I inhaled deeply before flipping the top of the sphere open with my thumb. I barely noticed the faint glow of the button inside as I pushed it. No trace of me remained in the room.

Chapter 2

"What is the date?" The voice echoed in my head.

The change was instantaneous. One second I had been in the maid's room in Stratford. Now I was here in this harsh, sterile room. We librarians referred to it as the White Box. The lights were blinding. I knew they were only slightly brighter than normal lights, but after spending months in a gloomy countryside in a candle lit house I was not used to the intensity of electricity any more. I dropped the chest and sphere on the floor and pitched forward. I managed to stay upright, a first, and leaned over to vomit. Don't fall into the vomit, I told myself. Perhaps I shouldn't have eaten at all today. No, it probably would not have mattered. Everyone vomits. Everyone struggles to stay upright. Everyone closes their eyes against the light. I fought against the urge to vomit again though the smell of bile and sweat was overwhelmingly nauseating.

The woman’s voice came again, "What is the date?" It sounded like Jennifer, maybe. The first few minutes of a return were always a blur, and I didn't know the recovery team that well outside of this room. I thought back to pre-mission briefing.
What was the date? April something.
I should've checked before I left, I wrote it in my journal. Why did I never remember to check? I managed to croak, "April 10th?"

"What is the date?" she said again.

I swore impatiently under my breath. I hated the formality of this. We both know she wants the year, why doesn't she just ask me for the year? "April 10th, 2073."

"What is your name?" Her voice was as sterile as the room.

I opened my eyes for a second, then closed them against the pain of the light again. I gave up on standing and fell to my hands and knees.
Do not lie down
, I told myself. I opened my eyes again for a moment and glanced to where I had dropped the chest. It was already gone, along with the sphere. The padding on the floor felt like a grubby old gym mat. "Adelaide Vivienne MacDuff." The vomit had been wiped away but the smell lingered and the padding had a grimy wet sheen about it that made me feel ill again.

I felt hands on me. They stood me up and supported me while another set started to remove my clothes. They always wore biohazard suits to protect against any contagious diseases I might have contracted while gone. The masks covered most of their faces so I could never tell who they were. I wasn't sure if that was intentional.

"Mission accomplished?" The final question. The longer I had been here the more these questions made sense to me, but this one was still puzzling. What if I said no? There were definitely missions that had failed, but for reasons out of the traveler’s control. No one had failed due to their own incompetence. Would they drag me out some other door along with my chest for a different kind of debriefing? I was probably just being paranoid, but it was hard not to be in this place. Most likely the question merely directs what they do with my journal and chest while I'm going through the rest of my recovery process. "Mission accomplished?"

I thought about it. There would be more discussion on this mission, I was sure. Without actually catching William in the act with another man, it was impossible to prove his orientation. It had been agreed amongst the higher ups that this would be a first step and I would find out what I could.

"Yes."

I heard the electronic thud of a microphone being shut off as the speakers cut out. Whoever was asking the questions was satisfied and left. If I squinted I could see shapes. I didn't mind it though, the people in their white biohazard suits and helmets were unsettling. They had removed my clothes at this point and were leading me to an unmarked white door. No doubt the inspection of the journal I left in the chest was already being done. I had never been in this room long enough to determine where all the exits were, but I was pretty sure that was by design. For a while now, there had been a dull curiosity about where the aides went when they left me. They guided me through another door and made sure I had enough strength to stand before retreating and shutting the door behind me.

I heard the hiss of the air handling system isolating the doctor and me from the rest of the world. I often wondered why she would volunteer for this, even with minimal risk. We took plenty of precautions before leaving on missions. I had been vaccinated against all known diseases of the period before I left.

It was darker in the examination room and I was able to open my eyes more fully. I automatically struggled over to the examination table. This was my least favorite part of the return. The nausea had passed but I was still feeling unsteady, and now I had to be subjected to unpleasant medical tests.

"How are you feeling Miss MacDuff?"

The formality in Doctor Crebbs voice betrayed only a very small amount of concern, but I knew better than to try and capitalize on it. I had asked her repeatedly to use my first name in the past. Part of me wanted to keep asking, to not give in to the formalities of the procedure, but I was especially weary this time around. "Dizzy." I took her hand to steady myself as I moved onto the examination table to lay down. I tried to take a mental survey of my body but the vertigo made it hard to focus on anything. "Very dizzy."

"Subject MacDuff experiencing more dizziness than past missions. I note again my objection to such lengthy visits." Within the first few seconds of my lying down she had already taken blood, my temperature and blood pressure. I knew the readings were automatically logged along with all vocal notes and a video recording of this session.

In the back of my mind I agreed with her assessment. The length had been too long. Not just for physical reasons but also psychological ones. Admittedly, it was a highly personal mission for me, but even a few weeks earlier it would've been a mentally easier decision to leave. No, not a decision, I had no choice. But that last climb upstairs to retrieve the sphere might not have been regretted as deeply.

She kept up a stream of notes, did countless more tests and gave me several injections while I tried to focus on recalling my mission. In my mind I reviewed the past few months and especially today. It was mostly to just keep myself distracted from the external stimulus. I didn't particularly care for doctors or being subjected to a battery of tests. We had only been doing this for a few years and we still weren't certain about any long-term effects on the body, so the examinations were a necessity. Everyone suffered the dizziness and nausea. They told us it was our body trying to readjust to the time shift, but they could not explain why it happened.

"Exams passed. Subject MacDuff released from quarantine, 0912." I gave a silent cheer and sighed in relief. The disorientation was passing. One thing I would say for Doctor Crebbs, she was fast. It had only been 12 minutes since my arrival. Everyone arrived at 0900. They liked to keep us awake for at least 12 hours once we returned, no matter what time it had been when we left. She helped me up from the examination table and once out from beneath the spotlight I found my eyes were now well adjusted. I thanked her and carefully made my way to a door opposite the one I had entered.

The next part was my favorite. One of the aides offered her arm to assist me, but I waved her off and descended the steps into the sanitation bath. The water with whatever chemicals they laced it with was nice and hot, and about two-dozen soft bristled brushes enveloped me from the sides and bottom of the tub and started scrubbing. I leaned my neck back into the arch on the tub as an aide set about to place the shampooing helmet on my head and started scrubbing my face. I was sure I had quite a bit of grime on me. Given William's affluence his family bathed every month, but it was not expected that the servants would bathe more than once a year and I hadn’t wanted to make a fuss about it. There had been experimentations with automated facial cleansing shells, but many of us had complained of feelings of suffocation and claustrophobia. In the end they were convinced that given the extreme variability of facial features they were better off scrubbing our faces manually.

There was a soft beep and the brushes around my arms retreated. I lifted my hands out of the tub and placed them in the manicure pods on either side. The first time it was explained to me what these were I was terribly frightened of the idea of a machine being able to adjust the ends of my fingernails, but the pods proved to be experts at their jobs. Another soft beep and the shampooing helmet was removed. My facial scrubber retreated as well and I reluctantly stood back up as the tub drained and an overhead shower rained down on me. I felt like my skin might squeak as I climbed out of the tub and into a soft robe. I smiled at the aide and walked over to another soft chair where the hairdresser Vanessa met me.

"Welcome back, Addy." I liked Vanessa, though I was fairly certain that she, like everyone else here, was trained to be watching me. The pleasant conversations that followed were inevitably monitored for any signs of dissent in the ranks. I had only minor training in this. Enough to keep an eye on my fellow librarians. Hairdressers were known for their ability to get people to open up.

I closed my eyes and murmured, "Thanks," as she started to brush my hair out. She had quite a task ahead of her. Before I left for my mission, my hair had been roughly chopped and the ends destroyed to help me fit in with my class. "It’s good to be home." I gave a hearty sigh and my shoulders, already relaxed from my bath, sank just a little further. She tugged at a particularly tangled spot the conditioner hadn't even made a dent in. "You could just cut all the ends off."

She gave a soft laugh. "Eventually, but it'd be nice if your hair laid flat while I did it." She succeeded with the rough patch and moved on to another spot on my head that had decided to misbehave. My stomach gave a bit of a grumble while she worked out the tangles. I realized I had been awake at least nine hours and had only had that one slice of bread to eat. Vanessa knew my nerves often prevented me from eating on the last day of a mission and she patted my shoulder. "Don't worry, they're on the way."

She finished detangling me and was parting my hair to cut it when a door on the side of the room slid open and another aide came in. Teddy, I thought. In their white tunics and shortly cropped hair they all blended together. He handed me a small cube, which I immediately popped into my mouth. I chewed till it was malleable and swallowed. He handed me a glass of water to wash it down with. It was largely tasteless, but it would settle my stomach until I could have a proper meal. He waited silently with a placid but not unfriendly look on his face for my order.

"Argent salad, goat cheese, floogberries, bacon vinaigrette. Dry aged duck breast, medium rare, braised golf potatoes." Though I had eaten a lot of meat and potatoes in the past few months, the preparation and seasoning had been lacking. The cube I had just eaten was dual purpose. In addition to settling my stomach, it would aid with digesting foods I hadn't eaten in a few months to assist in acclimating my system back to normal. Though I no longer felt the hunger pangs my mouth watered at the thought of my meal. "Bordeaux."

"Any particular vintage, Adelaide?" he asked.

"Surprise me."

The aide I thought was Teddy nodded, turned to go and left me to Vanessa again. She had trimmed the first section of hair and was changing my part to attack another section. "So, Shakespeare."

I could hear the smirk in her voice even if I couldn't see her face. "I know!" I knew I sounded like a star struck teenager. The truth was I had been looking forward to this mission more than any of my previous ones. Growing up with a last name like MacDuff made it hard to not become engrossed in William Shakespeare.

The material given to me for my research was largely already known by me. I had already read everything he was known to have written, in both modern English and the original quartos. In addition, I had read several of his biographies. Vanessa knew of my mild obsession, it had come up in previous post mission haircuts. But she was also one of the few non-librarians I got to see around the complex and actually have any lengthy conversations with. I had to assume that was also by design. My guess was that she was actually a psychologist who had been trained to cut hair. She knew more about what was going on than any of the other aides. We were warned not to talk about where we had been or what our future missions were to be with most of the staff, but she always knew.

"I think he liked me. He would come into the kitchens often to chat. Made it easier to get him to talk about his work when no one else was around. And he was not at all like what I was expecting." I paused for a minute, remembering my final conversation with him. "It was harder to leave there more than any other place I’ve been."

I realized a long time ago there was no point in trying to keep thoughts like that to myself. I had no idea what they made of anything I said, and second guessing motivations got me nowhere. She once told me she thought I was holding something back. I hadn't suspected her at the time so I divulged the thought I was having, which could have been considered slightly seditious. I had realized that the mission I was on at the time would have been completed more quickly and thoroughly if I had simply told target who I really was, and I very nearly did it that way. I was still here though. I had to imagine certain feelings of doubt in the laboratory complex were natural, and they'd rather know what I was thinking, than think I was keeping things from them. When I was being interviewed and had to go through the lie detector test, they warned me they would rather be told the bad stuff than lied to about it.