The Earth-44 Timeline Appendix Sixteen: Vignettes

[The Baron]

Vignette #1:

"Finally, tonight, the solution of a sixteen year-old mystery.

As our viewers may recall, two months ago, the mummified body of an eighty year-old woman was found in a peat bog outside Bourtangerstad in the Netherlands. Preliminary tests indicated that the so-called 'Bourtangerstad Woman'  had lain undisturbed in the bog since approximately 2000 BCE.

However, in a statement released today by UNIT Scientific HQ in Geneva, Switzerland, it was revealed that DNA testing had identified the Bourstangerstad Woman as the remains of Ms. Kimberly Ann Posinki, formerly of Middleton, Illinois. 

Ms. Posinski had disappeared without a trace in May of 2004, one month before her eighteenth birthday.   Posinski, an amateur crime-fighter, was better known by her codename, 'Kim Possible'.  With her classmate, Ronald Stoppard, known as 'Ron Stoppable', she fought several lower-tier super-villains, in particular Doctor Drew Lipsky, alias 'Doctor Drakken', 

-

Despite an exhaustive search, no trace of Ms. Posinski was ever found, and no clue to her disappearance was uncovered. Now, at last, the mystery is solved.

In a parchment message that was found with her body, which has been declassified only today, Ms. Posinski states that during an encounter with the criminal time traveler known as 'The Lord of Time', she was sent back to what she eventually realized was Bronze Age Europe.  While she attempted to leave signals as to her whereabouts for her friends in the present to find, in time she came to accept that no rescue was forthcoming.  Joining a local community, she married and had several children and grandchildren.  She arranged for her remains to be buried in the bog upon her decease, in the hope, now fulfilled, that they would eventually be found.

When asked if it might now be possible to rescue Ms. Posinski using some form of time travel, UNIT Scientific Advisor, Doctor John Disco, said,  'Sorry, no, it would create a temporal paradox. Now, shut up, I'm busy.'

Once final tests have been completed, Ms. Posinki's remains will be returned to her parents, Doctors James and Ann  Posinski, still resident in Middleton.

In a statement given this afternoon, Doctor James Posinski said: 'It's a very sad day for us, we'd never given up hope that we'd find her alive and well.  We do take some small comfort that our dear Kimmie will be coming home to us at last.'

In an additional note, UNIT genetic scientists say that Ms. Posinki's descendants may well number in the millions, and that this may help explain certain hitherto unexplained anomalies that have been found in certain  Western European populations."

[The Baron]

I knew that people here would almost certainly notice.

JD DeLuzio said:

I assume you're baiting us:

"what about the rest?"

[The Baron]

Vignette #23, Part Two:

Excerpt from an unpublished memoir:

I was born on a small farm near Winfield, Kansas in October 1943. I lived the life of a typical farm girl and might have eventually gone on to become a typical farm wife if not for something that happened in early November of 1958, shortly after my fifteenth birthday.

It was a cool fall night, maybe around 40 degrees out. I’d helped clean up after supper and finished my homework.  I listened to the radio for a while, and then went to bed early, which was typical for me.  What was not typical was finding myself wide awake at 3:00 a.m.  I don’t know what woke me up that night. I often think about how different my life might have been if I’d slept that whole night through.

As it was, I tried to get back to sleep, but found that sleep eluded me. Feeling restless, I threw on some clothes and, moving quietly so as not to wake my parents and went out back and looked up at the stars. I don’t how long it was – probably not more than a few minutes – I heard a rustling over by the barn. I moved carefully to check it out. I noticed a shadowy figure near the barn door. I decided I’d better get my father. I turned to go back into the house when something – a twig, probably – snapped under my foot. I heard a soft humming sound and found myself enveloped in a sullen red light. Then everything went black.

When I came to, I found that I couldn’t move or speak.  I seemed to be floating through the air, still enveloped in the red light.  I caught fleeting glimpses of shadowy figures, mostly like people, but with arms and legs that were too long and too thin.  I was carried behind our barn and then my “escort” stopped.   I heard a buzzing sound which was followed by a bright light which dazzled me for a second.  By the time my eyes cleared, I saw that I was in a brightly-lit hallway that could not possibly have been behind our barn.  Much later, I learned that I had passed through a Zhaanotek (1) warpgate, but at the time, I was shocked and confused.

I was taken to a small room and placed on a pedestal against the back wall. A transparent tube descended from the ceiling, encasing me.  The red light faded, and I could move again, but only for a moment.  There was a flash of blue light, a blast of intense cold, and once again, everything went black.

I don’t know how long I was unconscious, but when I came to, a small, shabbily-dressed, middle-aged man with a mop of black hair was smiling at me. Behind him, a younger man in a kilt was standing by the door, obviously standing lookout.  Orange lights were flashing, and I could a shrill sound in the distance, that might have been an alarm bell.

 

“Ah, you’re awake, good”, he said.  “Just hold still a moment and we’ll get you out of there.”

 

He operated some controls and the tube rose up, freeing me.

 

“There you go”, he said. “Good as new.”

 

“Who - ?”, I said.         

 

The man smiled again, and said “I’m the Doctor, and this is – “

 

“Doctor, they’re breaking through the door at the end of the hall!”, interjected the Scotsman.

 

“Oh, dear, no time for introductions, come with us, please! Come along, Jamie!”

 

The Doctor led Jamie the Scotsman and me through a series of corridors, pursued by the Zhaanoteks, fortunately (so the Doctor said later) mostly technicians who were not expert marksmen.  We came to a blue box that said something about “POLICE” on it   Before I could say anything, the Doctor and Jamie entered the box, pulling me in with them. I got another shock in a day of shocks, as I found myself in a large room, far larger than the box, in the middle of which was a six-sided structure, around which the Doctor was currently dancing, working controls.  As a wheezing, groaning filled the room, Jamie guided me to a chair, and then went off, returning momentarily with a cup of hot soup, which I sipped gratefully. 

 

Once I calmed down a little, the Doctor explained that we were aboard his TARDIS(2), a sort of time machine that he and Jamie traveled in.  They’d landed in the Zhaanotek base, which was located on one of their world’s moons, and had discovered that the Zhaanoteks had been collecting beings from various inhabited planets in Earth’s section of the galaxy.

 

“Not a proper invasion”, said the Doctor.  “Probably just scouting and evaluating for future reference.  Very methodical people, the Zhaanoteks. How were you captured?”

 

I gave him a quick summary of what had happened to me.

 

“Just your bad luck, then”, he mused.  “They wouldn’t have wanted to attract attention, so they would have taken the first person they found outside alone.”

 

The Doctor continued his story.  He and Jamie had managed to free the Zhaanoteks’ captives, and, with their help, activated the warpgate and began sending them home to their various worlds. Unfortunately, he soon realized that during the struggle, one of the Zhaanoteks had hit their own power reactor and it was slowly but steadily going out of control.

 

“Even I couldn’t have fixed it time”, said the Doctor.

 

Once all of the captives had been freed, the warpgate broke down completely. The Doctor and Jamie had prepared to flee, only to discover that I was being held separately, since, as the most recently captured, I hadn’t been properly processed yet. 

 

“We came to rescue you, and you know the rest”, the Doctor concluded.

 

“Thank you for rescuing me”, I said, “But can you get me home?”

 

A sheepish look came over the Doctor’s face. Jamie just looked resigned.

 

“You see”, said the Doctor, “I’m afraid that my control over the TARDIS is, I have to admit, somewhat less than perfect.”

 

“If you’ve not yet learned it in school, that’s what’s called an ‘understatement’”, said Jamie, earning himself a glare from the Doctor.

 

“So, you can’t get me home?”, I asked.

 

“I wouldn’t say it’s impossible”, said the Doctor, “But it may take some time.”                  

 

“Please do your best, sir”, I replied.

 

“Oh, I can promise you that much, at least”, said the Doctor. “Since you are going to be traveling with us, at least for a while, I suppose we ought to properly introduce ourselves. I’m the Doctor, and this is my friend, Jamie MacCrimmon.”

 

“Pleased to meet you”, I said, takingnthe Doctor’s proferred had.  “I’m Mary Ann Summers.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1. Editor’s Note: The Zhaanoteks were a race that ruled an empire of several dozen systems in the Beta Quadrant from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Centuries. They eschewed the use of starships, instead preferring to travel via controlled wormholes or “warpgates”. What their interest in Earth may have been is unknown.  About a decade after the events described here, the Zhaanotek Empire collapsed in a cataclysmic civil war.  By the year 2000, they had warred themselves into racial extinction.  What little we know about the Zhaanoteks has come through the efforts of Klingon archaeologists.
2. Stands for “Time And Relative Dimension In Space”