Into The Conifers

The disorientation took an hour to clear, but once he had use of his faculties, Ambrose Vaughn knew he was not where he should have been. The last thing he remembered before the room was filled with light brighter than the sun was sitting at a computer console, entering the programming fix ordered from the general hours before. He looked around and knew he was no longer in the generic basement office at Beverwyck College of Technology: he was in some sort of evergreen thicket. Wherever he was, it was not winter: He didn’t need the sweater. He slipped it off.

He stood on wobbly legs and called out, hoping he was not alone. There were two other programmers in the office, working hard and quickly to enter what they hoped would work. He received no answer. He looked at the sky. The blueness was comforting. He looked at his watch: 11:32 AM. Using his innate sense of direction, he randomly chose to walk west and gave himself an hour. If he ran into no one, he would head north.

He called out the names of his associates, Cynthia Gregson and Myrna Tomlinson. No answers came, except for birds taking flight overhead and the scurrying of small animals. After an hour of nothing but continuous green and pine straw, he headed north.



His watch read 3 when he found an ice-cold brook. He drank and sat. Ambrose was tired and hungry. He was also concerned about his compatriots: he was sure that they would not be holding up as well as him. He was still 19 and an athlete, lettering in soccer and lacrosse. Cynthia and Myrna were no spring chickens, two mothers brought into the project at conception.

“They’ve been programming for me for 10 years,” the project leader told Ambrose and others before they could question their inclusions. After the first day, it became apparent that these two were more than capable of doing all the programming alone, but Ambrose kept that opinion to himself. He didn’t want to lose a good income source.

He sat at the edge of birch thicket and contemplated whether to continue on this path or head south. Ambrose called out and expected the only answer to be birds’ wings or squirrels dashing on the dried needles.

“Ambrose?” a faint female voice called out. He yelled out again and headed towards the source.

A second female voice called out. He hurried towards it, running over pinecones, straw, and the occasional exposed root. He found the two women standing near another small stream. They looked as if they had been sitting for a while.

“Where are we?” both asked simultaneously.

“I don’t know.”

Cynthia sighed and looked around. “I could ask ‘when are we’, too.”

Ambrose cocked his head and squinted. “What do you mean, ‘when’?”

She looked at her feet and shook her head. “You don’t know what this project is, do you?”

“The professor who hired me told me that I was going to code some functions for researchers who were retesting some old experiment, using newer information and better equipment.”

Myrna put an arm around him and hugged him. She shook her head and answered, “That’s not true.” She looked at her friend. Cynthia answered the unasked question with a slight head nod. “Do you know what an Einstein-Rosen Bridge is?”

Ambrose answered in the affirmative. He read in several science fiction magazines that an Einstein-Rosen Bridge was the official name for a wormhole, a hypothetical connection between widely separated regions of space-time. “What? We were experimenting with wormholes?”

Both women reluctantly acknowledged his query. They turned away from him. He had many questions, but they had to wait.

“Can we get back to the college?” he asked.

“I don’t think so,” Myrna answered. “We were told that today the team was just testing the mechanics of the bridge, seeing if the machines created could hold a stable bridge for a few seconds.”

“And from what it looks, they were successful,” Cynthia added. She turned and asked her friend, “Do you know if they set a date in the Timer?”

Myrna shook her head, “I wasn’t privy to that information, above my clearance.” She lowered herself back onto the ground. Her friend followed suit.

Ambrose remained standing. “Have you two searched for any sign of civilization?” They both said no; they awoke where they now sat.

He scratched his head, tried to come up with the right words to get them motivated to join him in searching, but nothing came to him. He joined them on the ground.

“I’m sure they’ve figured out a way to find us,” he lied, trying to reassure the two. He looked at his watch and gave himself an hour’s time to rest before he would return to walking. Now that he found the two, he would begin to find food and shelter.

“I hope you’re right,” Cynthia said. She had something else on her mind, but stopped when they heard a stick break. They stood and prepared to walk towards the sound.

“Hello,” Myrna called out. “We’re over here.”

“All three of us are here,” Cynthia added.

Ambrose was ready to announce their presence, but stopped when he heard crunching behind him, away from the initial sound. He whipped around and saw them.

Four dark-skinned men who looked like his Kanien'kehá:ka grandmother. The women screamed and started to run.

“They won’t harm you, Misses,” a redcoat wearing man with a slight English accent reassured the two.

“Strange dress these three have,” a Mohawk told the man. He spoke Kanien’kéha to his fellow warriors. They laughed.

“I think we’re in colonial times,” Ambrose whispered to the two.

(951 words)