CHAPTER THREE: THE TIME MACHINE

Ruth led the other two downstairs, they went back to the sitting room and entered another room which was a room full of books, and this was the library. Surprisingly, It was a triangular shaped room, though vast. Thousands of books were arranged properly according to their categories and classes. Again, the scent of rosewood had occupied the whole room. There was a computer set on the right side of the room while a portrait of Ruth’s great-great grandfather together with his Alsatian dog was cohered on the left wall which deliberately divided the shelves on the left side.

“His name was Sir Jonas Lionheart H. Dickens, this library’s named after him and the dog was Tuta, after the name of Pharaoh Tutankhamen.” Ruth shared effervescently, when Caroline gave the portrait a look of curiosity. Somehow the girls giggled how Ruth’s great-great grandfather named his dog.

In the middle of the room, there was a round table, and on top of it as a centrepiece, a small replica of an obelisk made of pure ivory. Immediately, Ruth told the girls to sit down on the wooden chairs with fine chiselled arms of cherubim circling the table. Caroline and Heather were completely nonplussed as they had obeyed. Ruth tilted the obelisk on the left side and within no fracture of a three seconds, the floor on which the table and chairs were placed started to go down into the very base of the manor. They were swirling, as the girls held on tight on to the chair and their rucksacks. After some ten seconds, they arrived on a wide basement, a huge vault. It was protected with thick walls of huge pieces of stones. The roof on which they came from, was formed of several arches. It was like a church on the underground of the manor. The air inside the vault was a little cold and damp, though this temperature was not really a problem. As they abandoned the chairs they were occupying, the wide wall that was facing them now was designed with so many things that they never knew they could see in real life. A series of electric cords, a couple of computer set connected to another monitor that does not seem to be a computer but of some sort that way and the silver plated monitor which looked more like of a microwave oven was connected with a thick silver cord that almost looked like a dead cobra, attached strongly to a huge, handsome machine which was seven-times bigger than a two-door refrigerator. It was made of silver and titanium according to Paul. The door which served as an entrance-exit was of pure titanium and the triangular mirror at the centre of the door was of fibre glass.

Paul greeted them proudly, ‘Welcome to my vault!’ The girls, especially Caroline and Heather were obviously amazed by what their eyes were filling their insides. ‘Did you enjoy the small ride from the library until here?’ asked Paul without looking at them but merely encoding or decoding something on the one of the ordinary computer.

“Not really..Ever since I had my first and last ride on a rollercoaster, I swore I will not do it again.” Heather admitted, who was rounding up her head looking at the whole chamber.
“Is that the only way to go here from your house?” asked Heather as she helped herself on a glass of water where a small fridge was placed near the computer which was full of snacks, chocolates, drinks and other foods whenever Paul was working down on the vault and he would feel hungry, there would be foods ready.

“Nope, but that’s the fastest way to get down here, the other one is through that spiral staircase which is connected to my own bedroom and it will take you like five minutes to get here.” Paul pointed out the golden spiral staircase that was connected into the roof and it was certainly long.

“That seems better..my legs could have benefitted for that..” shrugged Heather. “So, that’s the beautiful thing..” added Heather pointedly, gazing at the peaceful time machine. Paul nodded firmly with a closed handsome smile.

“Paul, Can I take this?” asked Ruth, waving a round thing on her hand as she taken it out of Paul’s trove of hudge-pudge and tucked it inside her olive-green hued trouser’s side pocket. It was simply a small compass. Ruth once again, buried her hands on the trove and tried to search more of something that could be useful for them once they get into their destination. She quickly found a piece of parchment that looked like a map. She just stowed it inside her own rucksack that was full of foods and did not ask Paul anymore about it.

“You are all ready right? This time, now that the three of you are here, I believe there will be no more turning back on this activity.”

“Let’s just do it now, shall we?” started Caroline as she walked to the direction of the time machine while Ruth and Heather followed.

“All right. Everything’s settled.” Sighed Paul deeply. “I need you for a moment Carol, since you will be the Keeper of the Key, I need you now to hold on to this key and press your thumb on the circle spot there.” Paul instructed Caroline as he gave her the key that would connect them to the time machine and the present time. Caroline felt the key a little cold. She thought to herself as she caressed the key for a fleeting moment with her fingers. ‘This is it.’ While Ruth and Heather were simply watching carefully what might happen after Caroline pressed the circle thing on the key. With no regrets or second thoughts, Caroline pressed firmly her right thumb on the circle and suddenly, the time machine started to function! It became alive, as it made clamours of electric awakening. Paul looked at the monitor that was connected at the time machine and it gave an ALERT!

It needed the key that Caroline had just touched with her very own nerves and human touch. Paul grabbed the key from Caroline and inserted the key into a keyhole on the left pane of the monitor. He asked hurriedly Ruth what time in Ancient Egypt they wanted to go.

“The 18th Dynasty! During the reign of Pharaoh Amenhotep III 1382-1344 B.C. in Thebes, Egypt.” answered Ruth immediately. Paul typed all the details that his sister gave him and just in time, the monitor gave another red alert message to him ‘READY TO LAUNCH’

“Get inside the time machine now with your things!” demanded Paul to the girls as he took off the key on the keyhole and handed it over to Caroline who looked perplexed and excited. She snatched it and went inside the time machine where the hurried yet excited Ruth and Heather and their things were already inside of it.

“Close the door!” Paul shouted as he was about to click the word launch on the monitor with his finger as the monitor was a touch-screen. Caroline pulled the heavy metal door of the time machine closed. Inside, The girls were astonished and astounded of everything they were seeing for the first time. The metal walls of the time machine instantly disappeared and a series of spectrum and some blurred scene from Ancient Egypt itself emerged and dissolved as if a television was being channelled by an unsatisfied viewer as Paul’s voice could be heard from the inside, a speaker was placed there to guide them what to do now.

“All right girls, now listen carefully. The time machine has registered now that there are things inside of it as living things. I want you to hold each others hand and close your eyes and do not let go from each other’s hold! Do not forget everything I told you. Trust each other. Good luck!” finalized Paul as he touched lightly with his pointer finger the word ‘launch’ and the time machine roared more into action. It produced a mechanical noise like a spinning propeller. The girls were feeling a different sensation as they held hand and closed their eyes. Every part of the time machine vanished. Forms of light, hue and peculiar sounds were replaced and suddenly, a total darkness covered them. Heather’s hand twitched but did not let go as she gripped more Ruth and Caroline’s hands. Out of the darkness, whiteness swallowed them and cold strong air swayed and made their hairs all over their bodies brushed on their skin. The air felt like smiting them with its total strength. Caroline’s hands were sweating and she had to hold on tightly with her friend and cousin’s hands. She gripped on for dear life as all her force was put on it. It was ten times or more frightening than a rollercoaster ride thought Heather to herself. Ruth stayed calm as if she had travelled with the time machine before or probably because she trusted her brother so much with this.

Unexpectedly, the strength of the air grew more as the three girls shouted different words and Ruth’s voice was the loudest, ‘HOLD!..NO!’ as they all felt like they were dust sucked forcefully inside a vacuum cleaner.

Caroline felt dreaming, she felt the fine sands on her body lingering while the sun scorched mightily. She never dared open her eyes for she knew she was dreaming. She wanted to discover more this odd but interesting dream. Why does it feel humid and airy? And why am I sweating this much? She thought to herself. Suddenly, someone was shaking her continuously but lightly with soft hands on her arm gripping on it as she heard her name called by two familiar voices.
“Caroline..Caroline! Are you alright?” asked the girl with natural flaming red curly hair with a pretty worried face. Caroline moved with a slightest motion that she could only manage, as she muttered questions that came naturally from her mouth without even thinking, “Are we dead? Where are we? Did we make it?”

“Yeah I believe the time machine transferred us successfully, though, I’m not sure exactly where we are right now.” the other girl with tawny and wavy long hair answered as she stared into the wilderness. “We are in the desert Caroline! ..Sahara probably..’ she added gravely.

As soon as Caroline heard her friend’s grave suggestion of where they were, she got up and separated herself from the sands where she was laying. Hastily, she opened her eyes and got lightfast by the fiery sun.

“Ruth! Don’t you have the compass with you?” said Caroline in a sort of worried voice.
Ruth opened her rucksack full of food and drinks and started to rummage over it and after some seconds, she realized that she had placed it on side pocket of her trouser, quickly stood up and extracted the round thing with a red spinning arrow in the middle.

“Let’s see now!” as she held the compass with both hand delicately like it was some sort of a frail, newly-born chick. All of them were staring at the compass carefully and attentively as it spun. It spun fast and slowed down and within a few seconds, it swayed a fraction and stopped.

“East!” yelled Heather. “We walk for the eastern direction!?...” Heather’s voice tailed away when she realized that they had to walk to reach Thebes, where the kingdom of Egypt was settled. They were in Egypt but they were not exactly at the city where the kingdom of Pharaoh laid.

“Wait a minute!” Ruth took out a parchment from her trouser’s other side-pocket and the other two found out that it was a map of ancient Egypt. All of them buried their sight on the map as they tried to figure out where exactly they were and where they should go to. For some use of referring to each other’s opinion and view of where the heck they were, they decided to walk to the East and head to Thebes which was located at the Southwest of Egypt between the border of West and East separated by the river Nile.

So their journey began.

They walked and walked for miles and hours under the scorching heat of the ruthless sun. Caroline gave Heather a sun-visor and Ruth a baseball cap for protection as she wore for herself a bandanna tied at the back of her head matching their bee-eyed like sun-glasses. It was purely exhausting. The hot air swept on their skin cruelly as they faced the desert way on the east. Ruth gave the other two a couple of cola for quenching their thirst though Heather suggested not to drink too much since she was worried they might consumed their stock easily. Caroline looked at her silver plated wrist-watch to check out the time, only to find out that it stopped ticking! Ruth also checked her own wrist-watch and it gave the same condition. The sands, the sun, the air were no friend to them. Hospitality was nowhere. After four hours of journey on foot, they considered to stop for a couple of hours near the foot of a cliff to feel shaded from the heat. They assembled the tent Heather was before carrying on her rucksack when they started walking, until they were halfway walking, she decided to put it down and tied up a rope on its handle and dragged it with her right hand wearily.

It was a large tent. A dozen of people could get inside. Heather flatted her sleeping bag and laid there while she munched on some chocolate chips and would lift her head and half of her back every now and then to drink water. Caroline and Ruth were simply sitting, checking all their technological gadgets which surprisingly not working. Caroline checked her laptop and digital camera, she knew so well that she fully charged its batteries before leaving the house. Even Ruth’s laptop was lifeless and they had to accept that there would be no clear photos and videos as evidences that they successfully diverted themselves into the past.

“We also have to depend on writing with our own lovely hands since the laptops aren’t working!” cried Caroline as she took one more bite of her last piece of chocolate bar. Caroline glanced at Ruth who seemed pondering something.

“What are you thinking Ruthie?” she asked with a concerned face.

Ruth breathed, changed into an Indian sit from one leg fold position. “I am thinking why all our things are not working, but I think I know the answer to this. I think the time machine sucked all the electric energy that was present inside, that does not belong to it.” Shared Ruth convincingly as Caroline agreed with what she said when she threw a couple of nod and a keen look at Ruth.

“What about the key? Is it still functioning?!” asked Heather who looked frightened as she raised half her body from the sleeping bag. Caroline took off the small metal from the back pocket of her jean short. There it rest on her hand lifeless but from the look of it, the girls thought the same thing, that the key was not affected. After all, it was part of the time machine.

When everything was figured out, that their gadgets’ energies were gone, the key as what they concluded, undamaged, and the fact that they still had to walk more than they should, made the girls bemused. It seemed tougher than they ever thought. Now they were out in the wilderness without anybody they could turn onto except the key that was clinging on Caroline’s neck since she added it as another pendant to the necklace around her neck with a heart pendant already. They knew they should not turn back, not for now when they had not accomplish yet the purpose of their travelling whilst risking their lives on a tentative invention which Ruth’s brother made.

After some hours of somewhat relaxing and cosy rest, the girls decided to continue with their pilgrim to nowhere as Heather cursed words of ‘pretty dish for a vulture!’ ‘my death march to the altar!’ whenever the sands carried by the hot air that swirled touch her face. Ruth busied herself with the map and the compass she took from her brother’s trove of any things and tried to ignore Heather’s immature behaviour. Caroline looked scared and every now and then turned her head left and right, front and back to check if there were scorpions and desert snakes following them. It was no fun at all, walking on a lonely desert where the winds howled unfriendly, creatures screeched from somewhere as the mighty sun scorched and intended to burn them gradually. After two hours of walking, Heather pleaded to stop and rest once more, but the two did not encourage her to do so. They wanted to reach Thebes as soon as possible.

“I don’t wanna wander here at night Heath!” argued Caroline.

They continued to walk until, “Can you see that Carol?..” Ruth asked with awe etched in her face as if something beautiful and mysterious stroke her.

“What? Where?” Caroline turned to look at Ruth who was facing and having a small argument with Heather. Heather cared to look as well.

“Over there! Isn’t that –

“An obelisk...” Caroline finished Heather’s sentence. Clearly, there stood from afar, a tall, square, massive slim tower of rose-colored granite with a pyramid shape on top lightfast by the sun. It was no mistake, since an obelisk indicated as a landmark in ancient time. It could have been twenty-six metres in height and two hundred and eighty tonnes. The girls felt their hearts beating like drums at the same time, forming a small band of nerves and veins pulsating dramatically like something miraculous would happen anytime soon. It was all true. They were not mistaken and misled by Paul and his time machine. They had arrived, and this would be the start of their adventure, a peculiar sort of adventure.

“We’ve arrived..look at the map! Ruth!..where is the map?!” Ruth shared the map she was holding to them and sure enough, They had set foot in the land of the gift of the Nile.
“Oh my..I think I’m gonna faint.” Ruth took a couple of gulp from her own small water jug around her neck.

“Are we gonna enter the city now or what?..” whispered Heather. As if the obelisk was a huge horrific monster which could hear what they were talking about. Silence fell for a fleeting moment, they were thinking what to do next, either enter the city now or wait for the dusk to come.

“I am thinking...” Caroline started, “If we gonna enter now, there would be a fat chance the Egyptians would see us..I mean, look exactly how the way we dress from them! Or by dusk, they would be heading way back –

“Don’t you have the key with you Carol! It can make us invisible, can’t it?” Heather cut off by the sudden concept that she remembered Paul telling them.

“Yes! You are right.” Caroline bowed down her head to glance at the key dangling around her neck. She thought to herself, the key was their only way to enter the city without getting notice. Caroline looked straight to the other two away from the key, and said to them, “Alright, we will enter the city now.”

Caroline stretched her left arm for Heather to hold, and Ruth held on to Caroline’s upper arm so that she could press the key easily with her thumb. They were about to become invisible, when out of a sudden, a thunder of something from the ground were heard. Horses. Hoofs. Wheels.
Caroline and Heather were disturbed from their concentration when they heard Ruth screamed like a shrill cry. Ruth was taken by one of the man riding a chariot with speed by the arm, as other men with chariots and horses followed them. They stopped and circled around Caroline and Heather. They were staring at them like something they had never seen before.