Morgan Day
3,000 years after Atlantis sank beneath the waves Morgan Day would become its earliest (and latest) visitor. After doing so well in a five year assignment in medieval England the Chrono Researcher would (will) earn herself one of the Institutes most fought after assignments: the city of Atlantis before it sunk beneath the waves. Although the parameters for the assignment were on paper the same as any other (live among the society, learn the day to day culture, ensure the integrity of the timeline) Morgan knew that this assignment came with a special mission. It was optional. Neither the Director, nor the Administrator, nor the Council had explicitly told Morgan about this facet of her mission, but she could tell that there was a lot of hope that she would choose to complete it of her own free will.
The side mission, which the Institute could not in good conscious order her to do, but which they could apparently in good conscious silently encourage, was to stay in Atlantis right up to the day it sank, and to find out after all this time why. Such a mission was dangerous. Morgan knew if she cut her exit that close she might not make it back. But the thought of being there the day the city sank, of getting to see one of the most famous tragedies in human history...it was a heady thought. If Icarus was falling in front of you would anyone be able to look away?
​
When she had finished the debrief Morgan headed to the launch point. There was a crowd gathered for her 1:01 departure. If everything went well she would vanish in front of them and appear again at 1:02. A minute for them would be a six month long mission to her. It was less jarring than her last mission in which she had lived five years of her life in the three minutes the crowd milled around the Institute.
​
Morgan stepped onto the mosaic on the institute floor. She set her Locator to the coordinates the Classics team had finally pinpointed in Space as to the location of the Ancient city and then set her Traveler to the right coordinates in Time. The two devices, which appeared as a compass and an old pocket watch, would navigate for her. With one last look at her colleagues wishing her a bon voyage Morgan pulled the opaque stone key from around her neck. She placed it in the hole in the middle of the mosaic and turned it. The clockwork gears of the mosaic appeared to turn as Morgan felt a swooping sensation in her gut. The spinning seemed to get faster. She had always been told in training not to watch the gears during the Journey and it was her one flaw as an agent that every single time she couldn’t help herself. Finally when the spinning became too much Morgan slammed her eyes shut or maybe she just blinked.
​
When she opened her eyes she was in a city of white marble. Every part of the city gleamed with bronze and gold statues. The city seemed to blind her in the sun. The roads were paved with cobblestones and were populated by people. Rome was an Empire and one that would be remembered, but the people of Atlantis walked like they were the ones in charge of the world and its destiny. All of these people walking about and living their lives thinking that this city will be kissed by the sun tomorrow, and the day after that, but what about after that? How long did Atlantis have to shine in the sun? The breeze came in from the sea pleasant probably for the people, but ominous to this visitor and what she knew.
​
Morgan straightened her white chiton, and went off to become an Atlantean citizen. There was a usual method to these things: find an Inn or an abandoned building to make headquarters, analyze the fabric of space and time to gain a base reading and do any necessary repairs, then begin a study of the culture by becoming a part of it. Female time agents were often at a certain disadvantage, not for any true lack of skill but for the same reason women have been disadvantaged throughout history: they have to deal with archaic sexism. Feeling it was best not to try and secure a room or a job in this society on her own just yet Morgan milled around the city trying to stay in the shade of buildings when she could to avoid the sun until she found the old bath house. Listening to the gossip of a group of soldiers walking by her and making use of her Universal Translator she learned that the bathhouse had recently been abandoned when, according to legend anyway, Zeus had used it to meet with his lover. In her rage Hera had cursed the water to disfigure anyone who entered.
​
There was a new bathhouse being built a few blocks away and for now the city was deciding if it would honour or further insult the goddess if they tore the old one down. For now it would remain standing but clear of people which was exactly what Morgan needed. Slipping inside Morgan pulled out her equipment and began to analyze the fabric of Space and Time in the city.
​
“That’s so weird,” she muttered perched on a bench. The fabric of Time was average enough here, but the fabric of Space was unusually weak. Morgan had never actually seen readings so low in person. “It's like it's being held together by a thread,” she thought. She thought quickly, in any other situation she would contact the Institute for a research team and help...but everyone knew the secret purpose of this mission was to watch Atlantis sink. What if the sinking of the city had something to do with this weakening?
​
Morgan had the compass and the pocket watch in each hand balancing them between her palms like a scale, “Stick it out,” she said, lowering the compass and raising the watch, “or get help,” she finished lowering the watch and raising the compass.
​
According to Plato, Atlantis had sunk because they had offended the gods with their hubris. Morgan eyed the deceptively clear water in the pool in front of her. Gods or no, the moral of the story was clear: hubris killed. Sighing Morgan clicked a hidden button on the compass activating a distress signal. It would send a signal through space and once she activated it on the watch through time to the Institute.
​
Even that little ripple of a signal, so small Morgan had never had to worry about it before, was too much. The thread holding the Space of the city together snapped. There was a spinning almost like being on the mosaic, and there was a ripping sound so loud it sounded like a roar. In the spinning Morgan dropped her brass pocket watch. She caught a glimpse of it sinking into the pool and then the blurring got so fast all she could see were glimpses:
She was for a moment on an island. The civilization around her was gone and instead she was surrounded by green. A ship was sailing into the horizon.
Then she was on the deck of a ship, but it was different. She was looking at Atlantis on an old screen but it was destroyed and in ruins.
​
She felt nauseous but kept her eyes open.
​
She was under a swirling vortex of water held at bay by silver beams. A figure with fire at their heels flew above her. This city was blinding too, but not by the sun, by gleaming lights on black steel buildings. A woman in a sari rushed by her, but Morgan couldn’t say why she noticed her.
​
When she focused back on the city it had changed slightly. She was still under a swirling vortex of water held at bay by silver beams. These buildings were black but made of stone. There were people flying but not with rocket boots. This city was lit in colour: glowing balls of soft pink, dramatic red, and eerie green.
​
And then she was spinning surrounded by that eerie green light. There were others spinning with her; there were dead strange faces locked in a whirlpool. She was being sucked into a city of strange geometry and weird angles.
​
Then she was underwater. She was drowning. So deep and cold she almost couldn’t see anything. She struggled to hold her breath and to not open her mouth. Her palm dug into the compass in her hand. She felt the salt from the sea sting the cut she made in her hand. She felt something in the water move in front of her. She could barely see in the blackness of the sea but she saw: glowing gold eyes, a flash of scales, the gleam of something sharp--teeth?--she opened her mouth to scream choking on the sea, drowning, drowning–
​
Drowning on land. Coughing up water on the mosaic. It was 1:02. The Director was standing over her, the Administrator, the Council, and all the well wishers.
“We almost lost you,” the Director said.
“We locked on to where you were fine, but we had trouble finding when,” the Administrator added.
“Lost the watch,” Morgan choked.
“What happened?” Someone asked, Morgan didn’t care who.
“Space ripped. I was still in Atlantis, the compass must have kept me tethered to the coordinates but I wasn’t...I think I…”
​
“What?” The Director asked.
​
“I think I just became the first person ever to travel through dimensions. Same place, different universe.” Morgan admitted.
There was silence on the mosaic. And then everyone started to talk at once. Morgan had a towel placed on her shoulders by someone, only to have it ripped off a moment later by someone else running a scanner over her, only to have the towel placed back on to have a different scanner work.
Morgan let it all wash over her like waves breaking against the coast. She took deep breaths of fresh air. She had just started a whole new branch of exploration, a whole new frontier to observe and explore. There were new cities to be lost, which meant, she thought with a grin, new cities to be found.
