By EosReia
Prologue
As she walked through the highly air-conditioned halls of the FBI headquarters, Cat wrapped the short woollen jacket around her slim figure. Personally she didn't see any need for the halls to be so cold, even though it was August, the hottest time of the year. With large, ground-eating steps, she quickly made her way to room 305B. Taking a deep breath she paused for a moment. In front of her was a steel coloured door on which she could read, in bold black letters "305B - Dr. Franklin Damson". Underneath it, in a red rectangle, written in large white font was "Personnel Only". She stared at it for a while and after taking a second longer and deeper breath she pushed the swing door open.
"This better be extremely important." She warned, with obvious anger in her voice. "Tell me you discovered cold fusion, tell me that we are being attacked by a strange species of aliens which all look like Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise, otherwise I'm just gonna turn on my heels and go back to where I came from."
Cat stopped when she realised that she couldn't find the target of her remarks. She looked around the huge laboratory. For a moment it reminded her of a set on one of Hollywood's latest science-fiction blockbusters. Even though she had worked in a room much like that one for the last five or six years, she never ceased to be amazed at the technological machinery, which surrounded her. Suddenly, a small, egg-shaped head popped up from behind an enormous computer monitor. It belonged to a relatively young man, who couldn't be more than 26 or 27 years old. He had chocolate coloured eyes, which matched his short hair. A slick grin spread across his face as he saw the red headed figure he knew so well standing in front of him.
"You took your time to get here, didn't you?" he asked, the ridiculous, crocked smile still taking its place over his mouth.
"Don't mock me Ant, I'm not in the mood for that." She warned him. " What the hell do you want? Why did you make me come all the way back here? I was on vacation, you know? Do you still have the faintest idea of what that is? You better have a really good excuse for ruining my first vacation in six years. Are you just gonna stand there and say nothing?"
Silence.
"Ant…!" she growled.
"You look wonderful when you're angry, you know that?" was the man's answer to her endless roll of questions. But when he noticed the evident shade of red creeping up her neck and spilling onto her face, he knew it was time to get serious.
"I did it." Was his simple statement.
She sighed in frustration.
" You did…" she said in a low voice and pausing. When she continued, her tone gradually picked up speed and volume until she was practically screaming. " I'm not in the mood for games, I've told you I could be in Acapulco right now, enjoying the nice warm cancer spreading sun on my, unfortunately pale skin, on one of the whitest sand beaches on the planet, being served and hit on by Juan, the bellboy. I could actually be having sex, something that I haven't done in centuries. Ant, chocolate just doesn't cut it for me anymore."
"I did it." He repeated, ignoring her remark. " The project, it actually worked."
"What project?" she inquired, slowly trying to keep herself together.
"P1038TT." he calmly added raising himself from the chair and walking toward another door, which existed right opposite to the one Cat had just walked through.
She followed him, somewhat intrigued by the whole situation. After punching his password into the computer and pressing his thumb onto a blue panel next to the large steel door, and electronic voice was heard:
"Good afternoon Dr. Franklin Damson. Welcome!"
The door automatically opened and they entered the room. Dr. Franklin Damson, better known as Ant to his closest friends, turned the lights on, a laboratory, much more advanced than the one the were previously in displayed before their eyes. Ant led Cat to the far end of the room where she saw a shower shaped container. On the outside she could observe a small plaque where numerous buttons were placed.
"Cat, I give you the world's first time-machine." Ant scratched his forehead for a moment and realising his error added. "Second actually, but who's counting, right?"
The 22-year-old woman looked at him for a while and then burst into laughter. She couldn't control herself; she fell to the floor when her knees crumbled under her weight.
"Ant… you've… you've seen 'Back to the Future' one too many times, believe me." She finally was able to blur out.
When she noticed the angry look on her childhood friend, she forced herself to regain control over the laughter; She knew how Ant took his work seriously. Trying excruciatingly hard to keep a straight face, she mumbled:
"Ant, I know that you're a child genius, I mean you are considered one of the 100 most intelligent people on the face of the planet and you're only 25, but isn't time-travel a little out of you're league?"
The young man stared at her for a moment and then proceeded in explaining how he had accomplished this amazing task.
" I didn't do it on my own." He started. "Time-travel has been possible ever since the 1960's. The technology was developed mainly by Russian and American scientists, who were more worried about the progress of mankind, than a stupid war, like the cold war. In the winter of 1945, after the end of World War II, after the horrible massacres of the Holocaust were exposed to the whole world, the group of scientists formed a secret organisation bent on developing the technology necessary to make time-travel possible. Twenty years later, their efforts proved to be successful. The first date chosen by many of the science-men was 1933; the year Hitler first became Chancellor of Germany. Their goal was, obviously, to prevent the rise of the dictator and erase the Second World War from the history books. Once again they succeeded. But when they returned to the present, they found out that nothing had changed. And why is that?" Ant finally asked.
"Parallel universes." Cat stated.
"Exactly. See, according to Einstein, time-travel is indeed possible, but once you go back in time you go to a parallel universe. Another universe, not yours." The enthusiastic physicist explained. "If the scientists had changed their past and prevented Second World War…"
"…then they would have never had a reason to build a time machine in the first place, therefore never having travelled to time and changed the past." Cat cut in completing the trail of thought.
"Exactly." Ant shouted in excitement. "When they travelled through time they actually went to a parallel universe, changing the course of its history, but in their universe, our universe, everything remained the same. When the scientists realised this they were completely devastated and abandoned project P1038TT. All data was lost, but I was able to find bits and pieces and… Voilá!"
Ant took a deep breath after his speech, which, even to him, sounded a lot like a cheap comic book story.
Cat looked at the physicist before her. He was truly a brilliant man, with an incredible mind. Cat had first met him in a special school she was sent to when her parents discovered she was a child genius. Ever since she had first seen him, sitting on a small bench right in front of the school, running his small, bulky fingers through the pages of an enormous book, which seemed larger than him, ever since that day, he became her confidant. He was the one who had seen her through the long, difficult time away from her parents, away from the fresh green open fields of her childhood in Italy. He was there when she had her first F, when she had her first crush on the most popular boy in school, when she fell off a tree and broke her arm, when she almost got expelled from school for mischievous and rebellious behaviour, he was there to hold her hand during her mother's funeral and wipe her sweaty forehead when she had nightmares about her mother's death. He was her best friend. She'd known him all her life and knew all about his exceptional intelligence. Even though Cat had astonished all of her teachers when, at the age of nine, she could already write in the Latin, the Cyrillic and Arab alphabets flawlessly, as well as dominate completely the Chinese writing. But Ant had managed to surpass her. He had demonstrated enormous interest in the fields of physics and chemistry, and when he was only seven, he already understood Einstein's theory of relativity. He was a man of genius, but what he was talking about was science fiction.
"Ant, you know I admire you very, very much, but this hole story you just told me is nothing but FBI folklore, everyone knows it." She spoke softly; the words flowed from her mouth in a slow and orderly fashion.
"I'm telling you Cat, it's true." He insisted, moving away from her and throwing himself on the large chair, which stood in front of an enormous computer screen.
"OK. Let's for one moment consider that you are right. What would you do with this technology?" she calmly asked, sitting down in the chair next to him.
" I don't know. I have no idea. Haven't tried it yet."
"Then how do you know it works?"
"It does. Trust me on that one. I've been secretly working on this for the last six years of my life." Ant sighed at the possibility of not putting to use what he had worked for so many years. It terrified him. They looked at each other for a few moments and as Ant was about to stand up and leave the room, Cat spoke:
"Oh, what the heck, I don't believe in this crap anyway… Why don't I try it?"
"What do you mean 'try it'."
"Well, you say that this works, well then lets see it, send me back in time!" she spoke cheerfully, confident that time-travel wasn't possible and once she had proven that to her friend he was wrong, he would stop acting like Special Agent Mulder and everything would be back to normal.
Ant stared at her for what seemed like a lifetime and finally he broke the silence that filled the room:
"Are you sure?"
"Sure I'm sure."
For a few seconds the scientist's face was lit up, he was truly ecstatic. But after moments reality came crashing down on him, and the smile that graced his lips was quickly replaced with a straight line and a deep frown over his eyebrows.
"No. We can't do that."
"What do you mean?"
"We don't have the equipment necessary for it. Remember, you are going back in time, you can't go dressed like that, no matter what era it is."
Cat looked at him deeply concerned; he was taking this whole time-travel thing a bit too seriously for her taste. He actually believes in it. She feared her best friend had gone completely insane. Many famous geniuses had gone through it. After pondering over the issue Cat stood up, determined and walked out of the room without uttering one word. In a few seconds she was back and she brought with her a large bag. Ant easily recognised it. It contained his last Halloween's costume.
"There you have it. I'll go to the Old West, I've got the outfit and everything I need right here."
She opened the bag and dragged out a chamois coat and a pair of cowboy boots. Ignoring her friend's comments that she would have to dress like a woman and not a man, she tried the boots on.
"They fit perfectly. Good thing you're short and have small feet." She said jokingly, knowing how Ant was sensitive when it came to his height.
Afterwards she tried the jacket and even though it was a bit too long around the sleeves, she made the same comment about it as she had done about the previous item of clothing.
"There, I'm starting to look like a cowboy already!" Cat was really beginning to enjoy all that confusion.
"Cat, you forget in the Old West women wore dresses, remember?" Ant kept repeating, but Cat wouldn't listen, she was too entertained going through the bag were she found a pair of light brown gloves, about the same colour as the jacket she was now wearing. She put them on and took a long look at herself.
Except for the feminine Levi's 501, the tight cotton undershirt which she wore underneath the chamois coat and the thin short sleeved cotton jacket, she almost looked like a real cowgirl. Almost…"Something is missing." She thought. With on swift move, she picked up the bag, turned it around and shook it until a white hat came tumbling out of it. Slowly she picked it up. It was beautiful, with the side brims slightly turned upwards. Cat held it between her knees while she fought to tame her wild burning red curls into a ponytail. After a long hard struggle, she managed to hide her silk hair under the rough cowboy hat.
"Ready. Let's go to the wild wild west." she sang jokingly the last three words to the sound of Will Smith's latest hit.
"Cat, this is serious. Are you sure you wanna do this? The Old West was a pretty tough place.
The oak tree coloured eyes of the young woman narrowed as she removed her gun from behind her back and put it on display for Ant.
"You forget I have this."
Ant pondered for a moment. His friend was truly a master when it came to guns. She was a true gunmen with any type of fire weapon, even her father's old collection of guns. She wouldn't have any problem with it.
"Fine. If you think you can handle it."
"If I think I can handle it?" she repeated "You're kidding, right? I wasn't accepted in the FBI just because of my brain. The first time I used one of these I was ten. Believe me, I can handle it."
"Well, you'll have to take some ammunition with you just in case."
"Ah! Don't worry I'm planing on taking my bag with me." She asserted while holding up the black pouch, which still had the airport tags on it.
"This here has everything I need, even a bathing suit, in case it gets too hot in the Wild West." The last few words carried a strong tone of mockery, but Ant didn't care, she would be amazed in a few seconds.
"Well, there are a few things you have to know, namely how to get back."
"Ah! Why? Who knows, I might just find myself a nice cowboy and settle down, raise a few heads of cows. You never know." She proceeded with her mockery.
"Here, take this." Ant handed her a small device, which resembled a beeper.
"OK, I get it, I'll just beep you and you'll come and get me, right?"
"Cat, I'm serious. You press this button, put in the code and then today's date and hour and you'll be home in a blink."
"And what's the password mister Einstein?"
"Whatever you would like, just memorise it."
Cat thought for a moment while her long slender fingers skilfully played with the small cat, which hung on the end of her golden necklace. Slowly they moved downwards, towards the minuscule keyboard incorporated in the device. She punched in four numbers and pressed the red button on the edge of the machine. Immediately afterwards a high pitch sound was heard and the following message was shown on the small screen "password entered".
"There! Done, what's next?" Cat asked, the mocking tone never abandoning her voice.
"Are you sure you have everything you need in that bag? I mean, it looks pretty small!"
"Yeah! I've got a couple of shirts, a pair of jeans, a T-shirt… Hum! What else…?" Cat stopped for a second and pulled the purse strings. As she looked through her things she continued " Ammo, of course! Toothbrush, toothpaste, comb… bathing suit … Hum… shampoo and conditioner…bought them in Mexico, they're pretty good actually! Smell it!" she said as she practically shoved one of the bottles she was holding up her friend's nose.
"Hum! Wonderful!" Ant quickly uttered, not even having smelt the product, he knew that if he didn't say anything Cat would insist on him doing so.
The auburn hared girl, which now looked more like a little boy dressed up for Halloween, continued to look through her bag.
"Underwear, pen, writing pad, drawing pad, pencil, rubber…" She was interrupted by Ant's statement.
"Really Cat, you're 22 and you still don't know how to pack."
" What do you mean?" Cat asked innocently completely oblivious to the foundations of Ant's remark.
"Nothing!" he didn't want to get into an argument with her, he knew she would win. She was incredible, if she wanted to, she could argue that Hitler was the world's saviour and that Gandhi was the greatest tyrant that ever lived and actually convince everyone.
"Book, more underwear, rubber bands, pills for diarrhoea, stomach pills, tranquillisers, painkillers, aspirin… Dam it, I knew I had forgotten something… my protein supplements." She cursed as she closed her bag.
Last year, Cat had collapsed in the middle of a meeting. She was diagnosed with a severe case of anaemia. The doctors explained it that her digestive system wasn't able to function correctly. She had been shot in the stomach, a couple of months earlier, in the line of duty, and a large part of her small intestine and stomach had to be removed. Unfortunately, she was forced to take protein supplements to compensate the lack of nutrients absorbed.
"I got some of the with me. You forgot them here the day before you left." Ant informed.
"You're a life saver." Cat sighed in relief. "Quite literally, in this case. I haven't taken then for ten days now, one more and I was a goner."
After a few last minute check ups Cat was in the shower shaped container she'd noticed earlier.
To be continued...Chapter I
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The Way Station
Campfire Tales
