The next mission was meant to make an indelible impression on us, to teach us that we needed to be extremely careful. We were TTA time travelers. We’d be time traveling until we were too old to continue. However, in every instance where we journeyed backward to eras before our kind came into existence, we were going to be viewed as aberrations. There was no limit of aggression in people’s genes back then. Anyone perceived as too different, as strange, became a threat that unleashed dangerous levels of aggression, often leading to violence and murder. This happened even in circumstances where an unusual person was believed to have extraordinary powers. In the case of the albinos of East Africa, for example, people wanted to own parts of them for magical potions. Their skin was pure white. Personally, I could barely tell the difference between the albinos and people with pale skin. Many of the pale people were featured in fashion magazines of the time, and yet albinos were considered freaks. The message was drummed into our heads: If albinos were freaks, anyone with green skin would be considered subhuman at best, non-human at worst. Once you were deemed non-human, anything could be done to you. If we were caught by the wrong people, we’d most certainly be tortured, mutilated and killed.
The location of the mission to which Waylon and I would be assigned was the landmass that had been named the United States of America, also referred to as the U.S.A. or U.S., shortly after their Civil War of 1861 to 1865. Other teams would be going to East Africa and other parts of the world where they’d learn the same lesson as us.
Waylon and I would be traveling back in time to the state of Mississippi in the southern U.S. We were to show up a few days before the hanging of several people with dark brown skin. We were to see up close the kind of thing that could happen to us if we weren’t careful. We were also supposed to use our empathy to figure out if we could reveal ourselves to anyone in this particular moment of time and, if so, to do it. On future trips, we’d be interacting with people in medical procedures designed to get their DNA. None of this was to be done by force. We’d need to make them our allies working toward a common cause. We’d need their cooperation.
This second trip back in time was as difficult as the first. Once again, we traveled through many locations where our ship folded space-time to make coordinates from one era touch those from another era, so that our pod could hop across. Nausea was so bad this time, I feared I’d throw up. So many sights and sounds and languages flooded my mind, I could barely stay oriented as to where I was and what I was supposed to do. I made myself concentrate on the letters TTA—to remind myself that I was on a mission from there, that that’s the place where I had a deep, ongoing connection. I was just passing through the other points in space-time.
Finally, we landed. The instruments and outside cameras showed that we had ended up exactly where we had planned: in an isolated forest next to a lake. Back then, it was much easier to find uninhabited areas right next to settled ones. There was a lot of wild land where people weren’t as likely to show up and discover our pod. We turned on the camouflage cover, so that no one would see it from a distance.
We spent two days recovering, same as we’d done on our first extended mission. Then we ventured out. We dressed as ourselves. This time, we were supposed to hide and observe, so we didn’t need any kind of disguise. We were green. We’d be wearing our form-fitting green suits. Our instructions were to try to blend in with trees, plants, anything green if we were in danger of being caught.
Waylon and I walked around the lake. It was a beautiful place. The sky was bright blue and filled with enormous white clouds. The water sparkled with the light of the sun. Every once in a while, a fish broke through the lake surface, then splashed back down into the watery depths. The world was filled with sound: birds singing and calling to each other, insects buzzing.
Waylon walked to the edge of the lake, dipped his hand into the water and splashed it around. He said, “You should try this. It’s refreshing.”
I did what he suggested and found the water to be cool. It made me feel alive, helped further my recovery from the trip.
Waylon said, “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to live near something like this back home? We’re totally cut off from the rest of the world at the TTA.”
I commented, “The rest of the world is dying, though. We’d never find anything like this. It no longer exists.”
Waylon said, “We should enjoy it while we’re here. We should go swimming tonight.”
I agreed. That would be wonderful. I looked around. We were totally isolated, other than the birds and fish and insects.
At that moment, a deer stepped out of the woods. I’d only ever seen this beast in pictures. In our time period, they were extinct. This was a buck—tall with a majestic set of antlers. He pointed his snout in our direction, no doubt sniffing our body odor on the wind. We must have smelled different than all the other humans he’d ever come across. Did he wonder what we were? He looked directly at us, taking us in. We stared back. Then he turned and leapt over some branches, disappearing into the woods.
Waylon laughed. “That was incredible! We’re going to be able to see so many things from the past, things that no longer exist. I wonder how far back we can go. Wouldn’t it be amazing to go back to the point in time when Earth first came into existence?”
I said, “I wonder if there’s a beginning to time and an instance before that. What would that be like—to go back to the very moment before time came into existence?”
Waylon thought about that for a second, then said, “I’d bet it would be dangerous crossing over into that realm. I’m guessing we’d be leaving the entire fabric of space-time. There’d be the risk of disappearing into nothingness. Although chances are our current ships wouldn’t even be able to go there because there wouldn’t be any space-time coordinates to fold together in the period before time.”
I said, “If we’re thinking about this, so is the TTA. You know they’ll try to send a team there eventually.”
Waylon said, “I’d volunteer to go. That would be the ultimate learning experience.”
I joked, “Well, it might be your last learning experience before you turned into the time traveler who never existed.”
Waylon laughed. “No. If that happens, I want to be called The Time Traveler Who Stepped Out of Time, not the one that never existed.”
I said, “I’ll make sure that goes on your plaque in the TTA Memorial Building.”
We decided we’d better get going. We brought maps up on our contact lenses, showing us the way to the place we were supposed to observe.
A civil war had just ended in the United States. I had wanted to go back and study that, but the TTA felt they weren’t ready to handle the difficulties of sending travelers into a war zone and bringing them back safely. We’d have to wait until more missions were run and experience accumulated.
Our maps led us through the woods and past a flowing stream. It was clear as glass. It made a singing sound as it navigated its way over rocks and around obstacles. We crossed over it at one point, using a thick fallen tree trunk as a bridge. I marveled at the constant chatter of insects and birds. I swatted away tiny gnats and flies. They were incredibly annoying. I finally understood why previous generations had devised all kinds of methods for eliminating them.
Eventually, we came to the edge of the woods. Looking around, making sure no one was around, we stepped onto private property. According to our maps, this was our destination.
We heard an animal make a whinnying sound in the distance. A horse! I knew that from my studies. I’d heard it before on temporary ear chips, the ones that hook over your earlobes and send the information directly to your brain.