Excerpts from:
The Society of Ambulists, A History
By The Ambulist Preservation Group, Dr. Julicaria Ambrosi Presiding
London, Great Angeln, United European States (Universal Marker Position -UMP:40d1EARTH20311c)
Published: December, 2008 RLT (Universal Marker Time -UMT:336d12c411y)
(From the Introduction)
The fact that the Society of Ambulists was founded at all could be identified as a lark of random interactions resulting in a positive outcome, colloquially known as a happy accident. It was by sheer overwhelming chance that Dr. Ansel Pollock, Individual Hero-Complex, and the Lady Primrose all managed to cross paths on the same morning of the same world stream in the only open breakfast location of all South London during the great Pandemic of 1978 RLT. It was on that morning that three intrepid travelers realized that they were in the presence of other travelers at a shared nexus. Not the last such nexus, but notably the first documented case where it was known!
(Transcription of Individual Hero-Complex’s recounting of the Founding Nexus)
I had been in London of this timestream for about three weeks, checking out how the pandemic of my own Earth had shifted from 1918 to 1978. How does the a major crises shift by sixty years, if not by someone like myself? Someone had to be carrying the disease from another time period. Isn’t that a tipsy-topsy thought? Viral contamination between realities… what if this viral spread could transition beyond parallel time streams and cross over to divergent or perpendicular realities?
I am muddling all this through over my coffee, when in walks a chap that nearly matched my preconception of a traveler. He needed an expedition hat to complete the look, but he had a tweed and linen expedition outfit on, as if he was traveling the Serengeti, or hunting a strange creature across the forests of the Amazon. But then came the kick to my plate… I realized that as he had ordered a coffee and croissant, his sleeve had fallen backwards to reveal a Vortex around his wrist. It looked far different than my own, but it was no shakes ten-cents the same device meant to keep oneself tethered to their own origination point. I pulled my own sleeve back, looking at my own vortex singularity contained on the whole of my forearm in a leather harness and ugly wiring, and I realized that not only was this Tory cat wearing a Vortex, but it had been miniaturized beyond my own understanding. I had left my Earth thinking that my technology was the pinnacle of human development, and here was an old dude, all prims and propers, waistcoat and all, with a smaller version of a Vortex under his hunting shirt. I put my coffee down in shock and was staring like a G.D. fool. Capitalized and underlined.
Then out of nowhere, this lady in a vaguely Victorian-style red dress addresses the Tory at the counter. I realized that my heavily patched punker jacket made me the most normal looking one out of the three of us. She says, “Excuse me, kind sir?”
He goes, “Madam?”
Like I was watching an old telly play out and everything.
She leans forward, all concerned like, and asks under her breath if HE HAS A GODDAMN VORTEX TRANSLOCATOR ON HIS WRIST. I lost my shit and slapped the table. Coffee went everywhere, my donut bits hit the floor rolling into the corners, and I started laughing. The two of them probably thought I was mad, but I pulled back my sleeve without a word, and they finally caught up to the joke.
I still can’t believe it. I mean, what are chances? I calculated them later, so I will tell you.
1 in 10 to the 35th power. You might have better odds in catching a falling deep space meteorite in a bathtub launched randomly at any point from the Earth’s surface.
Turns out I was very wrong on the virus. It was unique… only the circumstances matched. Confirmation bias on my own part. Shame.
Still an interesting thought experiment that I pose to my students time to time. I may have lost the hair, and the attitude, but the big mind-melting thinkings, those all stuck behind.
(Transcription of the Lady Primrose’s recounting of the Founding Nexus)
I arrived on this new terra in an alley of sorts, which was not what I had fully expected. I had previewed the cusp from my translocation system so delicately sewn into my traveling dress as I had crossed over. The transition of walking between the planes of realities was a simple task really, once you understood the math of it, and not one that I had expected any great discomfort in taking. The translocation system of which I had designed was running perfectly and I could feel the tug of where my home remained, laying behind me, if you will. My translocation design had worked flawlessly, and through my adulation, I realized I was quite hungry. Silly Helena, I thought to myself. I should have eaten before I left. I was very young then, all of twenty-four, and quite prone to the flightly nature of youth.
My first journey had led me here, to this new terra, and as I knew the pound sterling reigned supreme, and I could leverage my own coin in a passable fashion. Coffee and perhaps a pasty, I thought. To my surprise, when I entered the shop, it was nearly empty. There was a strange looking young man at a table, wearing some unfathomable clothing, with hair the color of putrid cheese. I could not tell what to make of it, but as a traveller myself, I knew that my red overcoat over my traveling dress may appear strange to others as well. The man behind the counter looked like any other store keeper, a simple white shirt and apron, serving his limited clientele. It was the man standing on my side of the counter that caught my attention. It was the bulb located at his wrist.
I knew it immediately, as I had the same bulb located on my petticoat, wired directly below my sternum clasp. It was a grafted singularity, a slice of my own universe contained in a perpetual storm of creation and destruction, telling me which way I had to go in order to reach my own home. Having an origination point is paramount in the art of Ambulism, so I knew then that this silly little man, and he was silly looking, let me tell you. He was dressed for an archaeology dig, leather boots up to his knees, and three piece suit, respectable tailoring and high quality of cloth. I thought of his gentry immediately. Rich enough to for any pursuit, but not too rich that he would forget what was at stake.
My family is of a much worse kind. Idle rich. At least he had his wits about him.
I felt compelled to lean over and inquire of his Vortex Translocator, and as the words left my mouth, the young man at the table with the fan of green hair screamed unintelligibly, spilling his coffee all over the table and the floor around it.
I was about to the give the young cad a lecture that would make his mother blush, but as I turned to make eye contact with him, he pulled his sleeve back to reveal not only another Translocator, but one of a design entirely different than my own and the older gentleman’s next to me.
This was a monumental occasion. I nearly fainted. But I wouldn’t, because I am not Dr. Pollock, god rest him.
He did.
(Transcription of Dr. Ansel Pollock’s recounting of the Founding Nexus)
I had arrived in London of Great Angeln three days prior. I had come from an expedition to a strange planet of which I named Excelsior Prime. It was alien, for certain. We now know it was a version of Venus that had replaced Earth in it’s deep history, and had developed life in strangely parallel way. The intelligent life there we now call the Amblin, and they are clever and a half for their diminutive size. I thought since they were only the size of a river otter, their brain would not match my own. I was proven wrong on that front on many occasions. Rumor is that English is now their primary language. Clever people, the Amblin.
Anyway, I had arrived in this tertiary version of my own country to detox and quarantine myself. It is a handy location to have for my many involved expeditions. It is close enough to my own home that I am very comfortable, and it is already under heavy quarantine, so my chances of bringing anything untoward is nearly zero. Since I can shift on the timestream in any direction, I can make my comings and goings divergent, and never cross my own path. I stay two weeks, clean and sterilize my equipment, then head home. To my wife, my trips are only days, not weeks. Very handy indeed.
If I had known that I was to encounter two others from not only other timestreams, but divergent realities, on my trip to gather my morning breakfast and some proper tea, I would have attempted to present a better version of myself. I was in my only clean suit, as all the others were at the laundry. But I was in desperate need of a proper cup of tea. The hotel only had codswollop for some reason, and it was barely passable as a tea, but less any type of tea I had ever come across. Shame, really. The only terrible thing about this place was the fact I had to go out to get my tea.
I went to the same place I always had, and as I ordering my tea and biscuits, a young lady entered the shop and was staring at my wrist. I realized that I had lifted my Origin Bracelet arm to point at the biscuits I had wanted from the good shopkeeper, and my bracelet had caught her eye. She was dressed quite strangely, as if she had wandered from my own Victorian age, a red coat over a lighter dress, very full at the waist and hips, gathered in the back and near the lower hem. The dress was covered in unique patterns and ribbing that almost looked reinforced and armored, if you will. It was very well fitted, and she appeared to be carry herself with an age far beyond her actual years.
She made eye contact with me, nodded her head at my wrist and asked if I had a Translocation device on my person. I was beside myself. Not only did this comely young lady know what it was, but she carried herself as if she exactly how it functioned. I had never encountered such a person before, and the shock nearly shut down all rational thought.
Suddenly, another voice arose from behind, a very strange looking creature of a man behind me, wearing a leather jacket covered in designs and words, with denim pants, ripped at the knees. I was so taken aback by his appearance, that I was entirely certain that I was losing my mind. I had not seen him when I had come in, and I should have, because his hair was an appaling green color and stood up on his head like a set of porcupine quills. He lowered his own jacket sleeve, and to my astonishment, he had a rudimentary form of an Origin Bracelet as well, except it covered his entire forearm in some form of an ancient vambrace or fingerless guantlet.
Upon seeing the other, and my connecting the circumstances, am I afraid that I, stalwart in the face of insurmountable odds, momentarily lost my ability to stand straight. Lightheaded, I sat down roughly on the floor, and tried to keep my wits about me.
It was a strange encounter, and one that I have reflected on much since.
What led me to that point, at the place, at precisely that event?
I wonder about such things. Often.