There was muffled talking somewhere in the universe, but Sarah wasn’t ready for that. Not yet. She fought against the tendrils of consciousness that were creeping through her mind. When that battle was lost, her body took up its last line of defence.

 

She scrunched her eyes tighter.

“I think she’s alive,” a voice said, resolving itself from a distant mumble into something clear and very close.

 

“Check her pulse,” said another voice.

 

Sarah's eyes shot open as, simultaneously, her hand shot out.

 

“Wrist!” she snapped, sitting up.

 

“Ghot?” said the man who’d attempted to check her pulse and was now in the process of checking to see if his nose was still facing the same direction it had been mere seconds earlier.

 

“You check for a pulse at the wrist,” Sarah said through gritted teeth, “or the neck.”

 

“Gorry,” said the man, getting to his feet, “I dign’t gnow.”

 

“Maybe you didn’t,” Sarah said, adjusting the displaced neckline of her shirt, “but I think you knew what was there just fine.”

 

“Excuse me,” said a new voice as Sarah joined the land of the standing, “but who are you? And where did you come from?”

 

Sarah looked around and took in her surroundings for the first time. There were three men standing before her. The last man to speak had a weasel look about him, like the kind of person who would incite a riot from the back of the mob. The expert in anatomy was hidden behind his hands as he tried to stem the flow of blood. The third man instantly stood out to Sarah, though. He was quiet and still, and he was smirking. In a time of panic and confusion, seeing those traits in a person was either the best you could hope for… or the worst.

 

“My name is Sarah,” she said. “Look, this is going to sound unbelievable, but I’m from the future.”

 

“You’re right,” said the weasel, “that’s unbelievable.”

 

“You don’t have to believe me, you just have to leave me alone. I’m not going to hurt anyone—”

 

“Ha!” laughed a muffled voice, bitterly.

 

“—else,” she continued smoothly, “but I have important business and I need to get on with it.”

 

“How far?” said the quiet smirking man quietly.

 

“I’m sorry?” Sarah said.

 

“How far in the future?”

 

Sarah thought for a moment and decided she didn’t have time for games.

 

“I’m from the year 2348 CE,” she said. “I can’t tell you anything…”

 

The expert in human anatomy and the weasel were exchanging confused glances with each other, while the man whom Sarah had internally labelled as ‘irritatingly handsome’ seemed to take this information in his stride.

"What is it?" Sarah said.

 

“Well,” said the weasel, trying unsuccessfully to suppress a giggle, “I’m not saying anyone believes your insane story about being a time traveller, but let’s just pretend for a moment you are… you must be terrible at taking directions.”

 

“What are you talking about?” Sarah snapped.

 

“He’s talking,” the irritatingly handsome man said, “about the fact that you have landed in the year 4023.”

 

* * *

 

Sarah sat in some kind of waiting room, staring at the tracker on her wrist and wondering if smashing it hard into something might fix the problem. Mr Irritatingly Handsome stood across the room staring intently at some kind of floating display.

 

“No mention of you in any databases I have access to,” he said.

 

“Maybe they reported me dead.”

 

“You look good for a dead girl.”

 

“Thanks, you too,” she said absently, and then, “what? No. Shut up.” The man allowed his smirk to increase a few notches, something Sarah wouldn’t have thought possible mere minutes before.

 

“You know,” he said, “time travel is impossible.”

 

“Impossible to do accurately, apparently,” Sarah muttered.

 

“No,” said the man, “what I mean is, to this day, over sixteen hundred years after your time, we still believe time travel is impossible.”

 

She shook her head, “That doesn’t make sense. There was a lot riding on this expedition. Enough money to float a global economy had already been poured into it. If I never came back they’d keep trying.”

 

The handsome man simply shrugged. “Listen, you’re safe here, but things have changed quite a bit since your day.”

 

“No kidding.”

 

“Since it doesn’t seem like you’ll be flitting back to your own time, I need to figure out what to do about you. Why don’t you make yourself comfortable while I do?”

 

The man left the room and Sarah got up from her seat. The room was essentially featureless but oddly calming. The walls and floor seemed to be made of the same material, a warm white colour that was smooth to the touch and seemed to match her body temperature precisely. There was a table in the centre of the room, a few chairs, and that seemed to be it.

 

“Where’s that floating screen thing?” she muttered to herself, but before the full stop had landed on her sentence, the screen was back, hovering in front of her face.

 

Before she had a chance to verbalise a question, the screen began cycling through search results.

 

“Telepathic computers,” she breathed, impressed, “bit creepy but it’ll do.”

 

* * *

 

Carlson pushed open the door to the interview room to find his unusual charge a little pale in the face.

 

“Sarah, are you okay?” he asked, his trademark smirk dropping from his face.

 

“Jesus,” she said.

 

“I was just,” he started, “sorry, what?”

 

“Jesus..."

 

“Sorry, Jesus?”

Sarah became flustered. "According to your computer, he was born in the year sixteen hundred.” She glanced upward. “In my history, the calendar started with him. Don’t you see? Your calendar started nearly two thousand years earlier. I’ve compared major events to my memories, it all ties in.”

 

“I don’t understand,” Carlson said, his hands held up like someone negotiating a hostage situation.

 

“This is the right period,” she said. “I didn't miss the time, I missed the damn universe!”