Somewhere in time
Somewhere west of London, England
Both the craft and the Mitsubishi Outlander, with an unconscious Nancy still collapsed on the steering wheel, reappeared in a small clearing near a two-lane paved road. As soon as the car was deposited softly on the ground, the craft moved slowly sideways to a safe distance, then started to gain altitude. It barely had time to start clearing the top of the surrounding trees before a low flying aircraft overflew the opening, heading directly into the craft. Both pilots were equally surprised by the appearance of the other and were unable to avoid the collision.
The resulting explosion was seen and heard by a young woman named Megan Thomas, who was hitchiking back to Northolt from Aylesbury after having attended her grandmother’s funeral. The traffic was still very scarce at this time of the morning and she was wondering if somebody would pick her up after that last ride that had dropped her before turning towards Uxbridge. She was only a few hundred yards away from the fireball and alternatively ran and walked towards the now rising column of smoke. Finally arriving at the site, she saw the burning debris of at least one aircraft dispersed over a wide area. She then noticed a red car in a corner of the clearing opposite the debris. It was immobile and silent as Megan cautiously approached it. Something about the car was weird. It certainly was not a model she had ever seen before and the paint scheme was definitely not military. While it had a rugged, utilitarian air to it, it was also quite attractive and futuristic in appearance.
Megan saw a form, unmoving, in the front passenger seat and circled the car towards it. She understood her mistake only when she was close enough to touch the door handle: the person was sitting in the driver’s seat, which told Megan that it was foreign-made, with the steering wheel on the left side instead of the standard right side position in England. Suspicion and fear took hold of her for a moment, but her natural curiosity finally made her look closer. She then saw that the driver was a woman, tall, with neck-length black hair and wearing a brown leather coat. The woman was apparently unconscious. Deciding that she had to do something, Megan opened the driver’s door and checked the woman for a pulse: it was slow but strong and she also heard her breathe softly. Reassured, she dragged the woman out of the car and laid her in a more comfortable position on the ground. The stranger was indeed very tall for a woman and quite heavy, even if she was athletic-looking. It reminded her of ballet dancers, who had strong but svelte bodies. The stranger was certainly pretty, with a well-developed figure further enhanced by skin-tight black pants and short, elegant black leather boots. Her face was smooth, with a small nose and large, still closed eyes.
Those eyelids finally started fluttering, revealing pale green pupils. Megan hovered above her face so that she could see her easily. A soft moan was followed by a few weakly spoken words that sounded like French. Trying to remember her school years French lessons, Megan spoke slowly, hoping that the stranger would understand her. She did.
“How do you feel, Miss?”
“My head… hurts. Where am I?”
“I just dragged you out of your car. You were unconscious.”
The stranger hesitated a moment, then switched to English, to Megan’s relief.
“Your… accent. British?”
“That is correct. My name is Megan Thomas. And yours?”
“Nancy… Nancy Laplante. Where am I?”
“Near Uxbridge. I was hitch-hiking towards Northolt when I saw the explosion and came here.”
Megan was surprised by the sudden look of alarm on the stranger’s face.
“Uxbridge? Northolt? What explosion? Could you help me sit?”
“Certainly, Nancy.”
Megan had to use most of her strength to help her, as Nancy was still quite groggy. The French woman surveyed her surroundings with apparently increasing dismay and panic.
“My cottage, the lake, where are they?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about, miss. You are near Northolt. Where are you from?”
“Boucherville. I know of no Northolt near Montreal.”
Megan was not able to speak for a few seconds. Was this woman crazy? At least she now knew that this Nancy was Canadian, not French.
“Montreal is in Canada. This is England, miss.”
“…England? I…”
Nancy rose on her feet slowly and shakily. Megan had to help keep her from losing her balance. She finally steadied Nancy against the car. The Canadian, or so she claimed, looked around with horror.
“My cottage, gone! I was just arriving there for a vacation when that thing showed up over the lake and somehow knocked me out.”
“What thing?”
“Some sort of flying craft of an impossible kind. I…”
Nancy surveyed the crash site at the end of the field, where two twisted aircraft propellers were visible among the debris, along with a piece of fuselage bearing a black swastika, then turned towards Megan, a sick expression on her face.
“You said earlier that this here is near Northolt, England. Were you serious?”
Megan suddenly started to be irritated by all this nonsense.
“Of course I was! What kind of game are you playing? There is no cottage or lake here and, as for going on a vacation, you chose a funny place and time for one. We are at war, don`t you know?” Megan had nearly screamed her last sentence, which made Nancy flinch. She now looked at Megan’s uniform as if she was seeing it for the first time, scrutinizing in particular the various patches sewn on it. She suddenly looked sick.
“A British Women Auxiliary Air Force uniform, old style. God, no! NO!” She said as she banged her fist furiously on the car’s hood. After a prolonged silence, Nancy turned again towards Megan.
“What is the date today?”
“The date? Well, september the second.”
“And the year?”
“Are you kidding me?”
“THE YEAR?”
It was Nancy’s turn to scream and Megan’s one to flinch.
“But, 1940, of course.”
“Of course… “
Another moment passed in silence.
“Megan, you know what was the date when I arrived at my cottage outside of Montreal?”
Megan suddenly felt uncomfortable.
“September second, 1940, I presume.”
“Not even close. Try October the eleventh, 2012.”
It was Megan’s turn to feel funny. What Nancy just said was impossible, pure nonsense, but why would anybody try to push such a ridiculous story? She suddenly realized that Nancy was walking away, going towards the crash site.
“Hey! Where are you going?”
“I’m going to see if I can get some answers. You’re coming?”
Megan had to nearly run to keep up with the resolute pace of the much taller woman. What they came across was a typical aircraft crash site: lots of twisted, charred pieces that bore little resemblance with their previous appearance, mixed with a few larger, more recognisable pieces. One of the large pieces was an aircraft propeller. Nancy looked at it for a few seconds, her face grave.
“Bomber propeller, probably German.”
Megan was taken aback by the assurance in Nancy’s voice.
“How could you be so sure of that?”
“Look at the propeller hubcap. It is large and semi-spherical. Most fighter propellers in World War Two had smaller hubcaps, with German ones having an axial opening for a cannon or heavy machinegun barrel. If I remember my historical references, R.A.F. bases in this area belong to Fighter Command, not Bomber Command.”
Megan looked at Nancy with suspicion.
“What do you do actually for a living? You seem to know a lot about military matters.”
That made Nancy smile wrily.
“My main occupation is as a war correspondent. I also happen to be a reserve captain in the Canadian military intelligence. Believe me, I have seen quite a few crash sites, although they were of jet aircraft instead of propeller-driven aircraft.”
Megan gave her a blank look.
“What is a jet aircraft?”
Nancy started to answer but reconsidered.
“I will show you later.”
Continuing her inspection, Nancy was led by the sickening smell of burned flesh to what was left of a person. Megan took one look and immediately turned away before throwing up. Nancy had to brace herself mentally before starting to move away debris from the corpse with a twisted metal bar. She suddenly had a good look at a six-fingered hand and became as pale as a sheet.
“NO! It can’t happen to me! Not this!”
“Nancy, what’s wrong? What did you see?”
Nancy, shaking like a leaf, sat down away from her discovery. Whe she looked at Megan again, it was with eyes filled with absolute despair and with tears in her eyes.
“Whoever brought me here against my will is dead. I am now stuck forever in this rotten time period, with everything that means anything to me now 72 years away in the future.”
She then lowered her head on her knees and started sobbing. Megan could not help then to feel sorry for her, even if her story was completely unbelievable. She knelt besides Nancy and hugged her until she had controled her tears. It took a long time.
Her lips still trembling, Nancy raised her face toward the WAAF and spoke in a broken voice.
“What am I going to do now? Nobody knows me. I have nothing left except my car and what is in it and I will probably be locked up in a mental institution if I tell anybody what happened to me today. Even the money I have on me is probably now worthless. I am a castaway.”
Megan silently thought that Nancy was right about the mental institution. However, she couldn’t help feel bad for her and tried to comfort her.
“Look Nancy, the one thing of importance now is that we are at war and that England needs everybody’s help. You said that you are an officer in you military intelligence. I am sure that they could use your talents.”
“They?”
“My superiors at R.A.F. Northolt. Believe me, we can use all the help we can get these days!”
Which was too true unfortunately. England’s situation was truly desperate as it was facing alone the might of the German war machine and was expecting a German invasion at any time. Nancy seemed to think on that for a minute. When she spoke again she sounded like she had finally accepted her situation.
“O.K., I will drive you to Northolt and see what happens next.”
She then got on her feet and led Megan back towards the car. The minute Megan stepped in the car and looked at the interior, she started reconsidering her opinion on Nancy’s story. She had seen before the war pictures of supposedly futuristic concept cars at automobile shows. The interior of those cars now looked downright primitive compared to what was now in front of her. If this was a con job, it was indeed an extremely good one. Nancy, on her part, started the engine, then pushed a button on the central console while looking at a sort of small square screen.
‘’It was to be expected: my GPS navigational unit is not receiving any signal. Too bad: I will have to navigate the old way.’’
‘’A GPS? What’s that?’’ Asked Megan, confused. Nancy answered while tapping the small screen on the central console with one finger.
‘’It is a navigation system that uses a network of many radio emitters to triangulate its position. Since the sources of those radio signals still don’t exist in 1940, my unit is now useless.’’
Megan threw her a cautious look then.
‘’Do you still say that you really come from the future, miss? I have to warn you that I don’t think that anyone in Northolt will buy your story.’’
Nancy stared at her for long seconds before speaking again.
“Do you want me to show you now what a jet aircraft is?”
“Er, yes.”
Nancy threw her right arm over the space between the two front seats, digging inside a kind of duffel bag and finally handing Megan a magazine with a large colour picture of an impossible aircraft on its cover. Megan’s hands started to shake when she noticed the publishing date on the cover, while Nancy looked gravely at her.
“Do you believe me now, Megan? I assure you that I have enough advanced technology stored in this car to render obsolete most of your science.”
Somehow, the WAAF knew she now believed Nancy.
08:45 (GMT)
Monday, September 02, 1940
R.A.F. Northolt, England
“There, the base main gate is only 300 yards away. You will have to stop at the barrier and identify yourself. Let me speak first.”
“Yeah, just tell them that I am from the year 2012 and that I have no valid papers. That should do it.”
Megan threw an exasperated look at Nancy.
“Do you have a better idea? We just need to…”
A loud explosion followed by the staccato of machineguns cut off the young WAAF. A shark-like twin-engined propeller aircraft then overflew the main gate just after the small shack disappeared in a multitude of puffs of dust. Nancy understood immediately what was going on.
“German air raid! That was a Junkers 88 bomber.”
“God, what do we do now?”
“Get inside the base. What else?”
That plan immediately changed when Nancy turned in the base main entrance: a soldier was writhing in pain besides the ruined shack, while two other soldiers lay still on top of the sandbags protecting an antiaircraft heavy machinegun position nearby to the left of the gate. Nancy stopped the car abruptly and jumped out.
“Meg, help me get that man in the car. We will drive him to the base infirmary.”
“I’m with you!”
Running to the soldier near the shack, Nancy quickly inspected the large wound on his left leg. Her tours in Afghanistan and the Middle East had given her a wide experience in this kind of matter. She decided to put a temporary garrot on the leg, as the femoral artery had been touched and was pumping out blood massively. The young soldier was still fully conscious and watched on as Nancy, helped by Megan, used his belt as a garrot, then put him back on his good leg. With one woman on each side of the wounded man, the trio slowly covered the distance to the car. Nancy then rapidly threw in the back compartment the luggages covering the rear seats. She was helping Megan to sit the man inside when she heard the sound of approaching piston engines. The soldier turned his head and yelled in alarm.
“THEY ARE COMING BACK FOR A SECOND PASS! TAKE COVER WHILE YOU CAN, LADIES!”
“Like hell we will! Meg, take care of him.”
Nancy then ran towards the machinegun position.
“Nancy, what are you doing? Come back!”
Not bothering to answer, Nancy took hold of the weapon’s firing grips and cocked twice the stiff cocking handle. It was a Browning M2 .50 calibre heavy machinegun, a weapon she was well familiar with and had fired before many times. Planting firmly her feet on the base of the weapon’s antiaircraft pedestal, with feet well separated, she straightened her arms and let her whole body weight fall back, thus using her legs to bodily point the machinegun. She then chose a lead angle in front and slightly above the approaching Junkers 88 and kept her sight on that point as she opened fire. The noise was deafening as she hammered away, letting the bomber cross her line of tracers instead of trying to follow the aircraft. Luckily for Nancy, the bomber was performing a turn and was not coming directly at her, thus giving her a bigger target. Her first burst missed by a few feet. The german nose gunner then returned fire with a wild burst of 7.92mm machinegun fire, with a few bullets striking the sandbags around Nancy and two whistling by her ears. Something slapped her left arm but, not feeling any pain from it, she ignored it and fired a second, longer burst. Tracers hit the right wing and engine as the Junkers 88 turned directly towards Nancy, probably to help its nose machinegunner target Nancy but also at the same time facilitating her aim. As the German bomber started trailing smoke from its damaged engine, Nancy fired a series of short aimed bursts, targeting the cockpit and nose of the aircraft and hitting it hard. The medium bomber suddenly entered a steep dive as it was about to overfly Nancy, who was pumping burst after burst in it from nearly point blank range. Passing a bare fifty feet above the base main gate, the German plane crashed in the open field on the other side of the road, exploding on impact into a huge ball of fire. A concert of delighted screams greeted Nancy as she scanned the sky to watch for another threat. She did not see any other aircraft nearby but she now saw the group of four WAAFs that had been taking shelter in a trench besides a nearby brick building. The four women were now running towards her, cheering.
“THAT WAS FANTASTIC SHOOTING, MISS!”
“YOU REALLY PLUGGED THAT KRAUT HARD, MISS!”
Nancy grinned at the compliments but had to excuse herself and run to her car. A WAAF NCO looked towards the Mitsubishi Outlander and let a surprised yell out.
“LACW Thomas, is that you there?”
“Supervisor O’Connors? It’s me alright! We have a wounded man here to take to the infirmary. I could use some help here.”
“Coming, deary!” Replied the matron while running towards the car.
The airman was cautiously installed on the rear seat, with Megan at his side to help steady him, while Nancy signaled the NCO to sit in the front passenger seat.
“Alright, Supervisor, show me the way to the infirmary.”
“Go straight on this road. You will have to turn left in about 300 yards.”
Nancy accelerated smoothly, avoiding potholes as much as possible. The wounded man clenched his teeth but remained silent during the short trip. They finally stopped and parked in front of the infirmary’s main entrance. Nancy and O’Connors used their arms to form a chair for the wounded, while Megan helped support the damaged leg and opened the door. Two nurses and a doctor then quickly took charge of the airman, leaving the three women to await the prognosis in the reception area. O’Connors, grinning, extended a hand, which Nancy shook firmly.
“That was really good work on your part, Miss. I will make sure to commend you to the base commander when this mess is straightened out.”
“Thanks but that was no big deal, really.”
“No big deal? Shooting down a Junkers 88 with a machinegun? You are way too modest.”
“No, I assure you. By the way, my name is Nancy Laplante.”
“French?”
“No, Canadian. I was giving a ride to Megan here when we stumbled into the raid. I…”
“NANCY, YOU HAVE BEEN HIT!” Suddenly shouted Megan, pointing at Nancy’s left arm, where a hole was visible in the leather of her jacket. The nurse on duty at the reception desk, on hearing this, immediately came to Nancy and inspected her arm.
“I don’t see any blood. Please take your jacket off, Miss.”
To everybody’s relief, it turned out that the hole was a very near miss, with the skin barely scratched by the passing bullet, with a very light bleeding. The nurse smiled at Nancy, who was looking at the scratch with wide eyes.
“You are one lucky lady, Miss: a couple of inches further in and that bullet would have shattered your arm.”
O’Connors looked at Nancy with renewed respect.
“Miss, you deserve a medal for your act. Where did you learn to fire a machinegun so well anyway?”
“I’m a Canadian army reserve captain. I’m actually in military intelligence but I saw my share of action. I… OUCH! That hurt!”
“I’m sorry, captain, but I had to disinfect this scratch before bandaging it.” Replied the nurse apologetically as she applied a small bandage to Nancy’s arm. The R.A.F. doctor who had taken charge of the wounded airman then returned. A greying man wearing the uniform of a squadron leader, he was now suited up in clean surgical garb.
“Leading Airman Johnson is now being prepared for emergency surgery. He has lost a lot of blood but, thanks to you ladies, he will eventually recover fully in a few weeks. He keeps babbling about you shooting down a Junkers 88. Is this true?”
“Damn right it is, sir!” Volunteered O’Connors in a proud tone. “This tall lass here plays the heavy machinegun like a virtuoso. She even kept firing after a bullet punctured her jacket’s sleeve. Fortunately she was not really hurt.”
The doctor looked down briefly at Nancy’s bandaged arm before smiling at her.
“Good show! I suppose this will make the base WAAFs insufferable for the next few weeks, like, no more bit about women being defenseless. Oh, I believe that Flight Lieutenant Harris, the base security officer, is looking for you, miss.”
Nancy turned and watched a R.A.F. officer, accompanied by two military policemen, as he approached quickly. She did not like the look on his face. The stocky officer stopped three feet in front of Nancy. There was no hint of friendliness in his voice when he spoke.
“This is your car parked in front of the infirmary?”
“Well, yes, but…”
“Miss, I arrest you for unauthorized entry on this base and for suspicion of espionnage. You will come with me now. Handcuff her!”
A chorus of protests exploded as soon as Harris had stopped talking.
“Are you crazy, sir? Nancy just shot down a jerry and helped save one of our lads.” Protested Megan, with O’Connors immediately backing her up.
“That’s true, sir: this lady stood her ground against a Junkers 88 and shot it down near the main gate.”
“ Flight Lieutenant,” added the doctor, “I can personnaly vouch that this lady helped bring in Leading Airman Johnson, who will confirm the story about the Junkers.”
Harris looked and acted like a mean bastard, which was probably why he got the job of security officer in the first place. His response to the doctor was barely polite.
“Excuse me, sir, but I have here a complete stranger with a car full of weird-looking equipment inside a R.A.F. base. We are expecting a German invasion at any time and I have multiple reports of fifth columnists around the area. I have to take her in and check her out. Leading Airman Brannigan, take her away!”
As Nancy was led away, her hands cuffed behind her back, the enraged doctor got nose to nose with the security officer.
“Flight Lieutenant Harris, you have pulled some real boners lately, but this takes the cake! I will report this outrage to the base commander.”
“You do that, sir! Good day, sir!”
Harris then saluted and walked out. The doctor, livid, shouted at the duty nurse sitting at the reception desk.
“GET ME THE BASE COMMANDER ON THE PHONE AT ONCE! WE WILL SEE ABOUT THIS!”
The base security office was adjacent to the infirmary and was housed in the same kind of low brick building. Nancy was marched into an interrogation room, flanked by the two military policemen, and left standing in the middle of the room. The policemen withdrew to the corners behind her after taking her handcuffs off, while Harris sat at a desk in front of Nancy. She tried to plea her case, even as she was under the shock of what was happening to her.
“Look, Flight Lieutenant, I assure you…”
“SILENCE! YOU WILL SPEAK WHEN ASKED TO!”
The man must have been a boxer before: his nose was crooked and his ears deformed. It just made him even more intimidating than what his powerful built and brutal manners made him already. He reminded Nancy of a particularly nasty Serb commander she had met once in Kosovo during her tour with the NATO forces there.
“Empty your pockets on the desk. Quickly!”
She complied reluctantly, taking out her keys, money, wallet and a comb and putting them on the desk.
“Take your watch off too.”
“I…”
“SHUT UP!”
After Nancy had put her watch alongside her wallet, Harris seized it and examined it closely. It was a Seiko sports digital watch with nightglow feature and waterproof casing. At first, the man was confused by the digital display of the watch. Then he made a mean smile.
“AH AH! Made in Japan, it says here. This looks more like some kind of timer for a bomb than a watch.”
She had to mentally agree that her watch was not the actual run off the mill one now found in 1940 England. She suddenly realized with horror that any of her personal belongings that bore ‘made in Japan’ or ‘made in Germany’ could put her in real trouble. That must have applied to about half of her equipment. Putting aside her watch, Harris started going through the content of her wallet. First out was her money, with the word ‘Canada’ printed prominently on the dollar bills.
“AH! Trying to pass up as a colonial?”
She could not control her anger at this ignorant remark and started stepping forward as she spoke.
“Listen, you…”
The two policemen immediately stepped forward and seized her, roughly placing her back in the middle of the room. Nancy was now starting to be really scared: there was no way to know at what they would stop and spying was, at least here and now, punishable by summary execution. That was exactly what had happened to many German agents captured in England, as she recalled her history of World War II. Harris next looked at her numerous bank and identity cards and various permits. He suddenly started laughing hard, to Nancy’s puzzlement.
“What kind of twit forged those papers? All the dates on them are wrong.” He then showed her the magnetized strip on the back of her credit card.
“Some kind of microfilm, I suppose?”
“No, it’s just a piece of magnetic tape with my credit authorization number encoded on it. Look…”
“Encoded information? You are finished, lady.”
Nancy was by now seriously beginning to believe that last statement.
“Which ones are your car keys?”
‘’My car doesn’t use a key to be opened. It uses a personalized proximity detector.’’
‘’A what?’’ Said Harris, totally lost by those words. Taking a deep breath, Nancy then explained herself as simply as she could.
‘’A personalized proximity detector. It is attached to my key ring. It will unlock my car when you bring it close to it.’’
‘’What kind of crap are you trying to push on me, miss?’’
‘’The truth! If you don’t believe me, just try it.’’
Shrugging, Harris then put aside the set of keys taken from Nancy. Next, he examined carefully Nancy’s Defense department identity card.
“Ìt says here that you are an officer in the Canadian Army reserves.”
“I am a captain in the Canadian military intelligence, yes.”
The R.A.F. officer raised an eyebrow at her reply.
“Clever! That would have been a good cover story for an agent, if whoever made this I.D. card had not muffed the dates on it like on the rest of your cards. Besides, the Canadians, like us, have the good sense of not letting women in as officers. I thought that the Abwehr{1} was more professional that this.”
“They are professionals! It’s just that my cards show the correct dates.”
Harris looked at her with disdain as he picked up again her military I.D. card.
“Ìt says here born 820613. Explain!”
Realizing that the real crunch time had come, Nancy explained in as calm a voice as she could muster.
“It means that I was born on June 13, 1982. I know it sounds incredible, but I came, quite against my will, from the future, from the year 2012 to be more exact. I can prove it.”
Harris’ response was simply to laugh.
“A likely story.”
He then became very serious and loud.
“I HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR LIES! NOW, STRIP!”
“WHAT?”
“I SAID, STRIP! OR DO YOU PREFER THAT MY MEN DO IT FOR YOU?”
One of the policemen laughed in anticipation. The other, a young private, suddenly looked ill at ease.
“Er, sir, we are supposed to use WAAFs to search women and…”
“AIRMAN, IF THIS BOTHERS YOU, THEN MAKE YOURSELF USEFUL AND GO SEARCH HER CAR.”
Harris then threw Nancy’s set of keys to the rattled policeman, who glanced apologeticaly at her before leaving the interrogation room. Nancy, on her part, could not move or talk. The shock of realizing that she was stuck in the past, plus this humiliating treatment, was starting to be too much for her.
“WELL, I`M WAITING!”
Throwing a hateful look at Harris, she undid her jacket and took it off. Harris immediately seized it and thoroughly poked through it.
“THE REST OF IT, NOW!”
Nancy then took off her boots, shirt and pants, keeping only her