I was busy brushing my teeth when my friend Claire entered our dormitory's bathroom.

"Cathy! I am so glad that I found you. There was someone looking for you urgently, just a few minutes ago."

Claire's dorm room was located next to mine.

"Someone? Could you perhaps be a bit more specific?"

"A girl, probably another student, was knocking on your door. A redhead. She wants you to come to Prof. Jenkins' office, asap."

"That must have been Mira. Did she by any chance mention what this is about?"

"Yes, she did. It appears that your transit has been rescheduled. It's supposed to be today now rather than tomorrow."

"Great Gauss," I gasped. I hurriedly rinsed my mouth.

"Sorry, but that means I've got to run." I offered Claire an apologetic smile.

My friend looked sad. "How long will you be gone?"

"A year," I said. "Only twelve months, no more than that."

"That's a long time. I am going to miss you, Cathy."

"I will miss you, too." We hugged, a bit awkwardly.

My parents lived in another City. I was glad that I had already said goodbye to them properly on my last visit there, a week ago.

Walking down the corridor to my room, I stopped in front of the door to Nareen's dorm room, intending to say a brief goodbye to her as well.

The sounds that could be heard through the closed door – giggles, little gasps, small sighs – told me that Nareen's girlfriend Taki had been staying over last night, and that the two girls were busy with something definitely not related to their schoolwork. This would not be a good time for me to walk in on them to say goodbye, that much was certain.

Back in my room, I lost no time to get dressed. I was glad that I had had the foresight to transfer my one and only potted plant, a overhanging fern answering to the name of Lola, to Claire's room where it had been granted a place close to the huge window, facing south. My friend had solemnly sworn to take good care of Lola until I returned.

I perfunctorily made the bed and took a last glance around before I left the dorm room and briskly walked over to the Institute of Temporal Physics.

"So you got my message, didn't you?" Mira waved from her office and smiled. "Today is the big day for you, huh?"

"Catherine." Sara must have overheard her grad student talking to me. She came out of her office to greet me. "So, are you ready for your First Temporal Assignment?"

"To be perfectly honest, I am feeling a bit nervous right now."

"Everybody is nervous before their First Temporal Assignment." She cleared her throat. "First thing on your agenda will be a final medical checkup. I have arranged an appointment with Dr. Hayes for you at 8:30. When you are done with that, we shall discuss the Rules of Conduct and then meet with the technicians at 9 a.m. Transit will commence today at 11:00 a.m."

As expected, the mandatory health check turned out to be nothing I needed to worry about. After all, my annual medical checkup had been done less than three months ago. I got clearance for class A temporal assignments, the highest level of clearance for my age group.

Upon my return with the good news, Sara ushered me into her office. Prior to my first temporal assignment, I had to confirm with my digital signature that I had been instructed about and agreed to obey the Rules of Conduct in the Remote Space-time Region. The latter are basically pretty much what you would expect. I was not to expose people in the RSTR – the UK in the 1960s, in my case – to knowledge about 23rd century technology. I was not to tell them about historical events or developments that would occur in their future, such as the end of the cold war, the decay of the Soviet Union, 9/11 and the rise of religious fundamentalism, the ME2 Wars and the Cataclysm, or about the subsequent period that would be labeled the Second Renaissance later on. And, of course, under no circumstances was I permitted to reveal to the temporal natives my status as a visitor from a different time period.

None of this was new to me. We had gone through this extensively in Prof. Whitley's class on Temporal Integrity Protection Rules. But standard procedure dictated that your Temporal Instructor advised you about that stuff prior to an assignment.

"Great," Sara commented when we were done. "Next, let's go and meet with the technicians."

I stifled a sigh, wondering if I was likely to get anything in the way of breakfast today. Or, for that matter, lunch.

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A / N : Thanks a lot for taking the time to read the fifth chapter, I really appreciate it.

If you have thoughts, comments or moody remarks about what happened in this chapter, do not hesitate to add them. As always, you can also PM me if you prefer that.