Jump to new as of January 29, 2002
Elizabeth looked around her room - only it was no longer her room. There was a large mirror covering the wall where her bed should have been. Below the mirror there was a worktop cluttered with articles she didn't recognize - lots of paper, plastic and color.
There were three large chairs facing the mirrors. Against the right hand wall there was a large comfortable looking two-seater couch that looked as if it could've been made of leather. Elizabeth shuddered at the thought beginning to understand the stories she'd heard from her great-grandparents and read about during her studies. It did look very nice though. Still that was no excuse for all that slaughtering. On the other side of the room there was a rack with a number of outfits hanging from it. They were pretty ridiculous looking and Elizabeth couldn't help laughing at them. What were they made out of anyway? It looked like cotton - how ancient! Suddenly, she heard voices outside the room. She looked at her friend, Jane, who looked just as startled as she did.
"Who's that?" Elizabeth asked not really expecting Jane to know.
"How would I know?"
"It sounds as if they're heading this way...."
"Well, let's just wait and see then." Jane suggested.
"But what are they...." Elizabeth started.
The voices were right outside the room now. The two girls saw the doorknob turn and the door opened.
"Uh-oh - and what do we have here?" he said rather annoyed at finding the two girls there.
"Um, hi!" Elizabeth smiled, not quite sure what else to say. "I'm Elizabeth and this is my friend Jane. And you are?" Elizabeth asked.
"What, is this some kind of joke? Who are you?" the man replied.
"What's wrong, Marcus," came a voice behind the large man.
Another person entering the room followed this exclamation. He was a tall, blonde, blue-eyed male wearing a white half-unbuttoned shirt and black trousers. His hair and face were wet and he was holding an empty plastic water bottle in his hand.
"Luke?" Jane questioned wide-eyed and a little too loudly.
"Looks like a couple of fans. Somehow these girls managed to by-pass security and get into your dressing room" Marcus told him.
"How? It's virtually impossible with the security here...."
"I don't know but I'm going to have to ask you girls to leave," the big man said facing Elizabeth and Jane. Then shouting to someone behind him, "TOM, GIVE US A HAND HERE. Luke you'd better go and let the others know what's happening."
"Yeah...sure" Luke said walking out. "Err, nice seeing you," he nodded towards the two girls giving them a smile.
"Great, another couple. I've just dealt with a bunch at the backstage entrance," another heavily built man grunted walking into the room. He was slightly smaller than the first one but dressed in the same outfit.
"What's wrong?" Jane asked, innocently.
"I'm afraid we're going to have to ask you to leave," the one named Tom said.
"We can't until we speak to George first," Elizabeth told the men in a determined tone.
"I'm sorry Miss, but you should have done that when they were signing autographs instead of sneaking in here."
"We didn't sneak in..." Elizabeth answered back.
"Can we please do this the easy way? Come on" the first man said approaching Elizabeth and ushering her towards the doorway.
"But you don't understand..." she said trying to reason with him.
"Sure we do. We see it all the time, don't we Marcus?" Tom
"NO!" Elizabeth snapped. "I mean, we're here for help.... and the only person that can do that is George. If we can only speak to him..."
"You see, we're from the future..." Jane blurted out, which was met by a glare from Elizabeth.
"Yeah, and I'm from a galaxy far, far away!" Marcus said, laughing, obviously amused by what Jane had just said.
"But it's true," Jane said feebly.
"Okay, quit playing games girls," Marcus said trying to gain some sort of order.
"We've heard a lot of stories from fans wanting to see him, but this is just ridiculous," Tom said, approaching Jane.
The two men started ushering Elizabeth and Jane out of the room.
"Why won't you believe us?" Elizabeth asked. She hadn't wanted it to go this way but it was too late now and she had to make them understand.
"First, because there's no such thing as time travel. It's impossible," came the reply from Tom. "Second, it's just an attempt to see the guys or get some kind of attention."
"Not in the 21st century - but in the of course future time travel is possible," Elizabeth explained.
"Yeah right - I believe you. But I'm sure the media will be more interested if you want to go to them with your story instead," Marcus said sarcastically getting annoyed. "Now come on then let's get you out of here."
"But you have to believe us!" Jane said.
"Anyway, if you were from the future, you wouldn't go round telling a bunch of strangers," Marcus argued back.
"Why not?" Jane asked.
"Because we'd be out to make money from you...We might be scientists who decide to lock you up and experiment or something...who knows!"
"And what makes you think you'll get to meet the boys if you say you're from the future?" Tom questioned.
"But we are from the future...and it's a matter of needing to speak to George Knightley rather than wanting to meet him. Don't you understand?" Elizabeth asked.
During this, Tom and Marcus had managed to get Jane and Elizabeth to the exit.
"Go on off you go...." Marcus said. "It's getting pretty late."
"Where exactly do we go..." Jane asked.
"Home - safe and sound," Tom said. "Or if you still want to party there's a really good club called 'Serpent' a couple of blocks that way," he finished pointing to his right.
"We don't have a home here," Jane said quietly.
"Yeah. Besides this is our home in the future."
"What - this stadium?" Tom laughed.
"Yes!" the two girls exclaimed at the same time.
"Right...okay. We don't have time for this so goodbye girls." Marcus said waving them off. "Back to your hotel then..."
"Okay but listen here. We can prove we're from the future," Elizabeth cried out.
"How exactly are you going to do that?" Marcus asked.
"Yeah Elizabeth, how?" a confused Jane questioned her best friend.
"But you have to promise that you'll get George to meet us here tomorrow at noon if it turns out to be true. Is that a deal?"
"Sure.... why not?" Tom laughed. "What have we got to lose - it'll never happen!"
"Okay. Tonight there'll be a bomb threat at the White House which causes the president to quit..."
"Right and if that happens you get to see George?" Marcus asked.
"Yeah.... that was the deal"
"Okay - but be prepared to be disappointed girls. There's more chance of me being run over by a bus then having the president quit!"
"We can wish!" Elizabeth said with a cheeky grin and walked off with Jane trailing after her.
"So, what do you want?" came an angry voice behind Elizabeth.
"George Knightley! You came," she said turning around. He was wearing a black suede jacket, loose-fitting jeans and a dark blue shirt. She could see the anger in his dark intense eyes.
The girls were waiting outside the stadium the next day after spending the previous night at a bed and breakfast that they had managed to find. Luckily, Professor Radcliffe had ensured they brought enough 21st century currency with them to get by with.
"Yeah, well...you had a deal. Didn't you?" He said.
"Why are you so angry?" Jane asked.
"Because three innocent lives have been taken and you could have done something about it," he replied in a disgusted tone.
"Like what?" Elizabeth asked calmly.
"How can you be so flippant about it? I mean, you could have warned someone...."
"As if they'd believe us. You should have seen the way those two men reacted when we told them yesterday...." Jane said defensively.
"Besides, it's not our job to change history," Elizabeth added.
"If you'd done something about it, it wouldn't have been history."
"Maybe not to you...." Elizabeth said. "And even if we wanted to change it, we can't - it's impossible..."
"Besides a lot of good comes out of what happened last night," Jane explained.
"Like what?" George asked.
"Never mind.... it's a long story," Elizabeth told him. "Anyway, you'll see soon enough."
"So if it's not your job to change the future what are you doing here?"
"We need your help...." Jane said.
"Actually it's a matter of preventing something..." Elizabeth started saying.
"Preventing something? This is a joke right. I mean, get your story right. Preventing something means you're changing history."
"But this is important. It'll save our future and it won't have a large effect on world history," Elizabeth explained.
"So what could I possibly help you with? And why me?"
"Can we go somewhere first. It'll take a bit of explaining..." Elizabeth asked.
"And this isn't exactly the right place to tell you the kind of thing we're about to tell you..." Jane added.
"Okay, sure. We'll go to the hotel I'm staying at, okay?"
"Will Richard be there?" Jane asked.
"Yeah, probably. Why?" George asked, looking at her blankly. It was obvious he thought they were a couple of fans that had just managed to obtain the right information and exploited it to meet him.
"Oh, he just might be interested in part of what we have to say."
"We'll see when we get there...." George replied, leading them to his red BMW.
The room Elizabeth and Jane were in was quite large and spacious. It had a white-framed glass door leading out to the balcony on the other side of the room. Also a large window gave a good view of the city outside. The room had a large couch on one side of the room, what seemed like a TV and two videos players, a small wooden table and other bits of furniture and decor around the room.
Suddenly one of the other doors opened and someone came out, obviously startled to see the two strange girls in there. Elizabeth and Jane looked up to see a male with dirty-blonde hair and blue eyes. He had on a large white t-shirt with a logo on it and tracksuit bottoms. He looked shocked to see them standing there.
"How did you get in here?" he asked.
"Er, George let us in...." Elizabeth told him, nervously.
"Oh, right.... of course. You're the two girls claiming to be from the future aren't you?" he asked, looking at them in an inquisitive way. "I should have guessed.... just look at what you are wearing!" he laughed.
"No....we ARE from the future" Jane patiently. She was really beginning to get fed up of this. Besides, who did he think he was laughing at their clothes when he was the one that needed a fashion tip (or few).
"Yeah...okay, whatever," he sniggered, giving them a weird look.
"Why won't anyone believe us?" Elizabeth asked getting a little vexed. "What we told you about the bomb came true didn't it?"
"Well - George thinks you probably planted that yourselves," he replied, before realising that maybe he should not have said that when he saw the look on their faces.
"What do you think, James?" Jane asked.
"I have not made my mind up yet...How do you know who I am?" he asked suspiciously.
"Everyone knows who you are..." Jane answered.
"Yeah, but you're from the future. No, don't tell me - we live to be immortal and we're still going strong," he joked. "And you recognize me because we haven't aged - or at least our looks haven't!" he finished off, with a pleased grin on his face.
"No, that's pretty stupid," Jane retorted. Now it was her turn to give him a weird look. "If you look at the archives there's enough things you can look up. You were pretty big at your peak, you know."
"Jane, I think it was a joke. 21st century humor I suppose." Elizabeth explained to her friend.
Just then, George came back into the room with Richard.
"I see you've met," he said to James.
"Yeah. Can you believe they're still going with the time traveling story," he said laughing but stopped when he saw that Jane was glaring right at him. "Sorry," he said meekly looking straight at her.
"Right, here's Richard," George said.
"Hi," Richard said as he gave the two girls a warm smile that was highlighted by the twinkle in his eyes. He had short, spiky, blonde hair and was wearing beige jeans and a black shirt. "George said I'd be interested in what you have to say."
"Yeah, you might," Jane told him returning his smile.
"Actually, I didn't catch your names..." George said.
"Oh yeah, I'm Elizabeth and this is Jane."
"Very futuristic!" James said half sarcastically.
"Okay then," Richard said, "Now that the introductions are out of the way let's get started...."
"James, what are you doing?" George asked.
"Well, I thought I might hang around here..." he replied, "...if that's okay with everyone, that is."
George looked at Elizabeth and Jane, to see what they thought. After all, considering he did not know what all this was about it was not his place to make the decisions.
"Yeah, sure it's up to you but you can't really go around telling people what you hear." Elizabeth said cautiously.
"And no sniggering or making jokes or laughing or anything like that either." Jane added. She had already managed to figure that he was a bit of a joker.
"I promise," James answered with a solemn look on his face but biting his lip to stop from laughing.