Training Time
#2 of Time
"So hows our new recruit doing?" Freyja, one of our previous recruits, a six foot five tall Arctic Wolf, asked in accented English.
"Better than I expected." I replied, reading over her results. "Picked up reading and writing in French in less than a day, he ability to work with symbols and associate them with concepts is amazing. Molly has started her on English and working with the computer. As soon as she realised there was more to that strategy game than just the one map I had left loaded she demanded to know how to use it, we are lucky to be able to get any food into her or quieten her down enough to sleep."
"So when are you going to bring her back up to our time?" The Nordic warrior asked further.
"Well, they are in the sealed room I had put aside for this task, they will be getting out in about a day. When they do they will have been in there for nearly four weeks. I zip in and out every now and again to check her progress." I told the wolf redundantly, she, like everyone else in this plan, knew what I was working out.
Just then a very attractive red fox, reasonably short dark hair, dressed in our standard army-type gear wandered up and in a heavily French accented English said, "So, now you have me trained, educated and" She gestured around at herself, "'animalised'. What's the plan next?"
I tapped Freyja on the jaw and turned fully to face the new arrival, "Well now I teach you about my little trick, then each and every one of the fine task force I have assembled will detail to you their specialities and talents and you will start working on the plans to save the world." I grinned happily, which for my species meant my huge jaw, hinged just behind my eyes, parting. "If you will follow me back to the training room and we can begin."
She reverted to French, "Arg, I have spent four weeks cooped up in that place!"
"Yeah, well, I had a limited budget when I started all this and the only safe way to protect the world out there from anything we may carry back was to make a sealed room and never expose it to the current day inhabitants again." I replied, brushing past her and walking to the special room.
"Oh." She replied, back in English, "You plan a long way ahead do you not? You would be good at chess I am guessing?" She asked.
"Yes, I wasn't bad at chess, but I prefer Go, it has a lot more possibilities, although of late I have found the stimulation of time travel and making sure I maintain my goals despite history has kept me a little busy for games." I grinned back to her and received a chuckle.
I led her back into her 'training room' and she closed the door behind us. "Ok, you are going to be told the most about all this out of any of the other girls. First and foremost, I can move myself, inanimate objects and some people through time, as you already know. Some things you don't know about it, I can only ever move females, I don't know why, its just always seemed like only females can do it. When we are in the past, we cannot change the outcome of events, in fact, our actions at particular times may be required to keep history on track, but, if we are clever and work within the boundaries of events, things can be changed, you coming forward in time for instance. Any questions so far?"
"A few, firstly, why can't we change events, I mean if we just do something crazy it would change things right?" She asked.
"It wouldn't, history is history, if we act crazy at some point then we have already acted crazy at that point and history has already settled in and set into stone that event. Anything else?"
"You say only females can time travel, but how then do you yourself do it?"
"Its a knack, I don't know how it happens, but when I think a certain way, an-" I began but she cut me off.
"Non, I mean, how can you, a male, move through time?" At my stunned look she said, "What? What's wrong?"
I began giggling, "Jeanne?" I managed to get out, "Apart from my flat chest, what gave you the impression I was male?"
She was taken aback, "You mean... but your name... and you were so forceful... you were admiring me in..." She stammered, "Your a woman?"
I nodded, "Last time I checked. My mother got a bit mixed up at my birth, and by the time her error was found, she liked the name and it stuck. Unlike most of the rest of you, I chose a marsupial mammal rather than a placental mammal." At her blank look I explained further, "My body is built a little different." I started to strip off the shorts and short sleeved shirt I was wearing.
"Wait, I.." She began.
I took her hand and ran it to my soft furred, now naked, chest, "See, no nipples at all."
She was in silence, mouth half open. With my free hand I dropped my shorts and reached down, lifting the rear facing pouch just near my groin, "See, my 'breasts' are in there, along with some other 'bits'. To be honest its a little complic-" I started but her other hand had moved to feel down there too, and although I was handling it rather casually her touch at a very sensitive spot brought a soft sigh to my mouth.
She pulled her hand back quickly, "I.. I am sorry, I didn't mean to..." She stammered.
I just grinned, "Its ok, just thought I would show you how I was built, it might never be needed knowledge, but you never know." Damn, I would need either an hour or two to myself or a cold shower after this now.
Lifting my shorts and throwing back on my shirt I returned to the lesson. "So, I started looking around at time, and marvelling at the amazing things that had been done, I came up with a special 'mark' I could leave on events, not overtly, but in casual places, so that I would know I had been there. It was shortly after I programmed my computer to look for them that it started burping up that it found the marks everywhere, all over the place. I furthered the mark 'language' into ones that would let me know if I had worked and changed things and fed that to the computer. What it told me was astounding, in a lot of very dire wars and skirmishes these marks started appearing, showing that I had not only been there, but had to work to make sure history flowed right." I paused and looked at her significantly.
"Are there any marks in, what I mean is, did you have to meddle in my history, were you responsible for my achievements?" She asked, I could see this might be a sore point, it was lucky for me though...
"No, the only event I changed in your life, and for that matter the lives of all those here, is that I rescued you from untimely deaths. All your amazing life's achievements were your own, and they were the reason I chose you. And the others of course. Molly was a girl in the American civil war, her family was killed, she was found by some native-" At her blank look, I realised my error. "Oh, America was a huge continent found in the late fourteen hundreds, about sixty years after your 'death', it had a few internal wars. Molly is an exceptional girl, just like everyone else here. Freyja was a girl raised in true Nordic custom, although it never stuck for her, her father named her that at age twelve for two reasons, the goddess Freyja was said to be amazingly beautiful and also very war-like, just like his tom-boy of a daughter. I stepped in when she had gotten separated from her fathers war-band and would have been killed by some locals. The others will have their own stories for you, there is seven of us now." I explained to her.
"Now, where was I, oh yeah. So I started looking into the first of those events I saw that pattern in, and the more I researched it, the more I realised that the event should not have turned out the way it did, there was a missing factor that wasn't quite explained by probability. And that will be us." I brought up a map of a lovely beach in her home country. "This is one of three beaches that we will be visiting soon." I then overlaid the battle plan for one of the biggest single engagements in history.
She looked down at the overlay, "Juno? I have not heard of this place."
"It was the start of the allied offensive during the second world war in nineteen forty four. Across these three beaches nearly ten thousand men died." She gasped, her jaw half open. "From every simulation I have run, it should have been closer to fifty thousand. This beach should not have fallen with the defences the Germans had here." I handed her a data stick. "This will have all details on the disposition of troops from both sides, their equipment and its capabilities, as well as the equipment we will be carrying in. You know I can take us to anywhere and anywhen, what I need you to do is find the holes we need to fill to make this fight turn out EXACTLY as it did. It would be great if we could save all those soldiers lives but what is done is done, we can't fix that."
She held the stick, twirling it in her paw, "But, if its already done, and history is all ok, can't we just sit back and leave it?" She asked.
I just grinned, "No, we can't. Call it destiny, call it fate. I don't know. But the one thing I do know is that if we don't do this, the world would have been much different and, as far as I can tell, worse." I rose to get up and walked to the door, "For one thing, it wouldn't have your pretty smile in it." I said before leaving, the chuckle I heard behind me making me grin. Maybe I do have a chance with her after all.
"Wait." She yelled, running to catch up, "You mean, you want me to plan all of this? But you are the one who can think ahead so far..."
"I can, but I don't have a head for military matters, that's why I got you." I confirmed for her.
"How long have I got?" She asked at last, slowing her pace and glancing back to the study room.
"We have a while, once the sickness has passed, the hybrid form gives us a much longer life span than a normal human. But I hope its done sooner rather than later. Now go!" I said with a laugh as she was already edging to get back to the simulator, "The computer in there is set-up to work out anything you want, let me know if its not working right. Also give me a yell when you need to talk to any of the others." She nodded and ran back not looking back.