Connie Willis - Blackout

Her assignment had ended the second of May? Polly’d assumed it had ended when the Army took over the manor. “When did you leave the manor?” she asked.

“The ninth of September.”

May second to September ninth. That was four months. She’d been at the manor for four months after her assignment had ended. “And no retrieval team came for you?” Michael asked.

“No, unless they came while we were quarantined and Samuels wouldn’t let them in.”

But even if they’d been unable to get to her during the quarantine-and surely they could have managed that-they’d had more than a month after that to pull her out, and there wasn’t the excuse of their not knowing where Merope was, as there was with her and Michael. Oxford had known exactly where to find her.

But it wasn’t just that. Mr. Dunworthy would never have left Merope to cope with an epidemic, and he definitely wouldn’t have left Michael here with an injured foot.

And this was time travel. Even if it had taken them months to locate Michael in hospital, Oxford could have sent a second team to be there when he landed in Dover and take him to the new drop site and back to Oxford.

“But my drop can’t have been damaged by blast,” Merope said. “The manor wasn’t bombed. So what can have happened?”

“I don’t know,” Michael said.

I do, Polly thought sickly. She’d known it from that morning at St. George’s when she’d realized the retrieval team should have been outside Townsend Brothers the day before. That was why her knees had buckled-because she knew what their not being there meant. But she’d kept inventing excuses to keep from facing the truth. Which was that something terrible had happened in Oxford, and the retrieval team wasn’t coming.

Nobody’s coming, she thought.

“But if we can’t use any of our drops,” Merope was saying, “what do we do now?”

Alone 

London-25 October 1940

“HOW WILL WE GET HOME IF BOTH POLLY’S AND MY DROPS are broken?” Merope asked, trying to shout over the noise on the platform and at the same time keep the shelterers on the adjacent blankets from hearing.

“We don’t know for sure that they are broken,” Mike said. “You said there were soldiers at the manor. They might have been close enough to your drop to prevent it from opening.”

Merope shook her head. “They didn’t come till a month after the quarantine ended.”

“How far into the woods was your drop?” Michael asked. “Could it be seen from the road? Or could one of your evacuees have followed you? What about yours, Polly? Are you sure yours was damaged, or could an air-raid warden have been somewhere where he could see the shimmer? Or a firespotter?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Polly wanted to scream at him. “Don’t you understand what’s happened?”

I’ve got to get out of here, she thought, and stood up. “I have to go.”

“Go?” Michael and Merope said blankly.

“Yes. I’d promised I’d meet some of the contemps. I must go tell them I can’t come.”

“We’ll come with you,” Michael said.

“No. It’ll be faster if I go alone,” she said and fled into the crowd.

“Polly, wait!” she heard him call, and then say, “No, you stay here, Merope. I’ll go get her,” but she didn’t look back. She plowed through the crowd, around outstretched feet, over blankets and hampers, through the archway and down the tunnel, desperate to get away, to find somewhere where she could be alone, where she could absorb what Michael and Merope had just told her. But there was nowhere here that wasn’t jammed with people. The central hall was even worse than the tunnel had been.

“Polly, wait!” Michael called. She glanced back as she ran. He was gaining on her in spite of his limp, and the hall was packed so tightly she couldn’t push through. Where-?

“You there, stop!” someone shouted, and two children shot past her, darting between people with a station guard in hot pursuit. The crowd parted in their wake, and Polly took advantage of the momentary opening to run after them as they raced toward the escalators. The crowd closed in behind her.

The urchins, who looked suspiciously like the boy and girl who’d stolen that picnic basket in Holborn, racketed down the escalator to the next level and into the southbound tunnel with the guard and Polly a few steps behind.

They rounded a corner. “Stop, you two!” the guard shouted, and two men who’d been standing among a group against the wall joined the chase. Polly stepped quickly into the space the men had left, flattening herself against the wall, breathing hard.

She leaned out past the remaining men to look back the way she’d come, but Michael didn’t appear in the stairway. I’ve lost him, she thought. She was safe for the moment.

Safe, she thought dully. We’re in the Blitz, and we can’t get out. And nobody’s coming to get us. She put her hand to her stomach as if to hold the sickening knowledge in, but it was already spilling out, engulfing her.

Something terrible-no, worse than terrible-something unthinkable had happened in Oxford. It was the only possible explanation for her drop and Merope’s drop both failing to open, for their retrieval teams not being here, for Mr. Dunworthy not being here. He would never have left Michael lying wounded in hospital, never have left Merope stranded in the middle of an epidemic, never have left her here knowing she had a deadline. He’d have yanked her out the moment, the instant, he realized Merope’s drop wasn’t working, and he wouldn’t have sent a retrieval team to Mrs. Rickett’s or Townsend Brothers or Notting Hill Gate. They’d have been waiting for her in the passage when she came through that first night. And the fact that they hadn’t been could mean only one thing.

Mr. Dunworthy must be dead, she thought. She wondered numbly what had happened. Something no one had seen coming, like Pearl Harbor? Or something even worse-a terrorist with a pinpoint bomb, or a second Pandemic? Or the end of the world? It had to have been something truly catastrophic, because even if the lab and the net had been destroyed, they could have built a new one, and this was time travel. Even if it had taken them five years, or fifty, to construct a new net, to recalculate their coordinates, they could still have pulled her out that first day, could have pulled Michael and Merope out before the quarantine started, before Michael injured his foot. Unless there was no one left alive who knew they were here.

Which meant everyone was dead, Badri and Linna and Mr. Dunworthy. And, oh, God, Colin.

“Are you all right, dearie?” a round, rosy-cheeked woman across the tunnel from her said. She was looking at Polly’s hand, still pressed against her stomach. “You mustn’t be frightened. It always sounds like that.” She gestured up at the ceiling, from which the sound of bombs was very faintly audible. “The first night I was down here, I thought we were for it.”

We are, Polly thought bleakly. We’re stranded in the middle of the Blitz, and no one’s coming to get us. We’ll still be here when my deadline arrives.

“You’re quite safe,” the woman was saying. “The bombs can’t get us down here-did you find them?” she broke off to ask the guard, who was coming back along the tunnel, looking disgruntled.

“No. Vanished into thin air, they did. They didn’t come back this way, did they?”

“No,” the woman said, and to Polly, “These children, left to run wild…” She clucked her tongue. “I do hope we see an end to this war soon.”

You might, Polly thought. I can’t. I’ve already seen it. And had a sudden vision of the cheering crowds in Charing Cross, of-

That was how you knew, she thought suddenly, before Eileen even told you her drop wasn’t working, how you knew that morning at St. George’s before you even went to Townsend Brothers, before you knew the retrieval team hadn’t come.

Till this moment she’d never made the connection, not even that night Marjorie took her home with her and they’d ended up at Charing Cross. She’d kept the knowledge carefully from herself, afraid to touch it, to even look at it, as if it were a UXB which might go off. Which it was. It was the final proof that in fact the terrible something had happened, that no one had come in time. Unless… oh, God, she hadn’t even thought of that possibility. She’d assumed… but that was even worse…

“Are you feeling ill, dearie?” the woman was asking. “Come, sit down.” She patted her blanket. “There’s room.”

“No, I must go,” Polly said in a strangled voice and darted back down the tunnel and across to the escalators. She had to get back to the platform and ask Merope-

“Polly!” a woman’s voice called from behind her. It was Miss Laburnum, struggling toward her through the milling mob with two carrier bags. She looked flushed and harried, her hair straggling out of its bun.

I’ll pretend I didn’t see her, Polly thought, but the crowd had closed in, cutting off escape.

“I’m so glad to see you’re late for rehearsal as well,” Miss Laburnum said. “I was afraid I was the only one. I went out to Croxley to borrow a butler’s livery from my aunt for our play. I got a lovely costume for when you’re shipwrecked. Here, hold this.” She handed Polly one of the bags and began digging through the other. “It’s in here somewhere.”

“Miss Laburnum-”

“I know, we’re already horribly late. The train back was delayed-bomb on the line,” she said, giving up her rummaging. “Never mind, I’ll show it to you at rehearsal.”

“I can’t go with you,” Polly said, and tried to hand her back the bag.

“But why not? What about rehearsal?”

“I-” What excuse could she give? My fellow time travelers are here? Hardly. Some school friends? No, Merope had already told Marjorie Polly was her cousin.

Marjorie. “My friend who was in hospital-do you remember?” she said. “You were with me the night I found out she’d been injured?”

“Yes,” Miss Laburnum said and seemed to look at her strained face for the first time. “Oh, my dear, your friend hasn’t-?”

“No, she’s much better, so much that she can have visitors now, and I promised I’d-”

“Oh, but you can’t go to see her in the midst of a raid.”

In her worry over everything else, Polly’d forgotten all about the bombs falling above them right now. “No, no, I’m not going to visit her. I promised her I’d go to St. Pancras to tell her landlady the good news, and take her a list of things Marjorie wants her to bring to her in hospital.”

“Oh, of course. I quite understand.” She took the bag from Polly. “But you’ll be there tomorrow?”

Yes. Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. “Tell Sir Godfrey I’ll be at rehearsal,” Polly said and hurried away. She had to get to Merope and ask her-

A hand clamped onto her shoulder. “I’ve been looking for you everywhere,” Michael said angrily. “Why did you run off like that?”

“I told you, I needed to tell the contemps I promised to meet that I couldn’t come,” Polly said, but he wasn’t listening.

“Don’t pull a stunt like that again! I just spent the last three and a half weeks looking all over London for you. I can’t afford to lose you again.”

“I’m sorry.” And sorry you found me before I was able to find out-

“Michael,” she said. “When did you leave for your Dover assignment?”

“Right after I saw you in Oxford.”

Thank goodness, she thought. But this was time travel. He could have gone to Pearl Harbor flash-time. “You weren’t able to persuade Mr. Dunworthy to change your schedule back?” she asked to be certain.

“No, I never even got in to see him.” He looked curiously at her. “Why?”

“I wondered, that’s all. We’d best go find Merope. She’ll be worried.” She started off through the crowd, hoping she might be able to lose him again.

“No, wait,” Michael said, clamping a hand on her arm. “I need to know-”

“Polly!” Merope shouted. They both turned to look. She was coming down the escalator, elbowing past people to reach the bottom, to get to them.

“Michael! Oh, thank goodness! I’ve been looking for you everywhere. The man whose blanket it was came back and made me leave. He said it was his spot and that his wife had been waiting in line since noon to save it, and there was nowhere else to sit so I came looking for you, but I couldn’t find either of you anywhere, and I was afraid I’d never see you again!” she said, and burst into tears.

“Don’t cry,” Michael said, putting his arm around her. “It’s all right. You did find us.”

“I know,” she said, pulling away from him and wiping at her cheeks. “I’m sorry. I haven’t cried the entire time I’ve been here, not even when I found out you’d gone back to Oxford, Polly. I mean, I know you didn’t, but I thought you had, and that I was all alone here…” She began to cry again.

“You’re not alone now,” Michael said, handing her a handkerchief.

“Thank you,” she said. “I know. It’s ridiculous to cry now. It must be reaction. I’m sorry I lost our place to sit-”

“It’s all right, we’ll find another one,” Michael said. “What about the next level up, Polly?”

“We can try it,” Polly said and started toward the escalator.

“Wait!” Merope said, clutching Polly’s hand. “What if we get separated?”

“She’s right,” Michael said. “We need to decide on a meeting place. What about at the foot of the escalators?”

“Can it be the farthest level down?” Merope asked nervously, glancing up to where the muffled crump of bombs could be heard.

“Fine,” he said. “If we get separated again or anything happens, we go straight to the foot of the escalators on the lowest level and wait there for the others. Right?”

Merope and Polly nodded, and they got on the escalator. But the level above was just as crowded. “After the trains stop, we might be able to sneak up to the surface,” Polly said. “There shouldn’t be anyone in the station but the guard.”

“But what about the raids?” Merope asked fearfully.

“Oxford Circus wasn’t hit-”

“You said Padgett’s wasn’t hit either,” Merope said accusingly, and Mike shook his head in warning at Polly and said, “I don’t think upstairs is a good idea. Isn’t there anywhere down here?”

“No,” Polly said, looking around at the entrances to the tunnels, trying to think which platform might-

She frowned. There, emerging from the southbound tunnel, were the two urchins the guard had been chasing. How had they got up here? The guard had said they’d vanished into thin air. “Hang on, I have an idea. Stay there,” she said and, before the other two could object, darted into the tunnel.

Halfway along it was a gray metal door marked Emergency Exit and under it, No Unauthorized Admittance. A couple was sitting in front of it on a plaid rug, righting several overturned dishes and mopping up spilled tea.