Andrew arrived in precisely the same place he had departed from: the Tower of London. He had chosen this location because it was the only building in the city he knew with a room that existed in substantially the same state as it had on May 11, 1348. The date he had not chosen. In fact, May 11, 1348 is why Andrew was chosen. Indeed, contrary to most of the stories he'd read about time travel, a traveler could not simply choose his temporal destination. The destination was fixed and depended entirely on our precise position in space relative to the past. "Something to do with Earth's orbit," was all Andrew knew—well that and the fact that May 11, 1348 somehow corresponded to October 22, 2015. In any case, Andrew hadn't been chosen for his knowledge of science or metaphysics. Andrew was a historian, and he had been chosen because he was Britain's foremost expert on the reign of Edward III (1327-1377). And here he was, right in the old king's heyday.
The trip had only taken an instant. The machine made a loud crack, and the room went completely dark. A dank musty odor filled Andrew's nostrils, and he felt a searing pain in his right hip—like rubbing up against a cast iron stove. He cursed and winced and reached into his pocket and yanked out his cellphone. Andrew had been specifically warned not to travel with anything metal, but he had completely overlooked his phone. Truth be told, he felt sort of naked without his phone, and he was sort of glad he'd forgotten to leave it back in 2015—second degree burns notwithstanding.
Andrew flicked the power button and pointed the illuminated screen at the darkness around him. As the surroundings came into focus a feeling of pure awe washed over him, and at the time a pang of revulsion. He was in the royal archives. Andrew had spent untold hours in these archives as a reader at Oxford preparing his thesis, but this was nothing like the place he knew. The modern archives were temperature- and atmosphere-controlled—a completely sterile, almost sacred, environment to ensure perfect preservation of the historical records. This place was a mess. He saw volumes and ledgers packed onto wooden shelves. The air was damp and smelled of mold and decay. "No wonder there's so little of this stuff left," he thought.
Whatever. That stuff could wait a subsequent mission. He didn't have time. Andrew was here for one reason only. To secure the manuscript and bring it back to the future. All he had to do was pull it off the shelf and be standing with it over the correct floor-stone when the wormhole opens in an hour.
But before he could begin to look, he heard a noise. Voices just outside the door. Someone was fumbling with the latch. Quickly, he scrambled down a row shelves and ducked under a carrel. He snapped his phone screen off and held his breath as the door creaked open and two men entered, one of them carrying a small torch to light the way.
"And here it is!" exclaimed one of the men. His voice boomed and echoed throughout the chamber. "The original, the definitive source."
Andrew peeked around the stack. He could see neither of their faces.
The second man replied with a nasal whine, "Your highness, you do me such an honor. If only you knew how long and far my predecessors and I have been searching. The legend to rule all legends. May I have look?"
Andrew couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Your highness?" Could that really be Edward III himself? And that voice. The second man's voice. That whine. It was so damn familiar. It sounded....it sounded just like his arch-Nemesis, Peabody Crabtree of Cambridge University—the conniving scoundrel who tried to sabotage his thesis—the second foremost authority on Edward III.
"Have a look? You will take it herewith, Sir Crabtree. You have saved the life of this king with your elixir to ward off the black plague. Besides, it's only fitting. You're the finest soothsayer since Merlin himself, and thus his rightful heir."
Andrew nearly fainted. Sir? Merlin? Was he dreaming or did motherfucking Edward the III give the ancient lost Arthurian manuscript to Peabody Crabtree, England's most dastardly medieval historian?
"Thank you, my liege," said Crabtree.
And like that they were gone. Andrew resigned himself to defeat, and flicked his phone back on. He figured he might as well take some pictures or play a game to pass the time until the wormhole opened. Then he noticed something strange. A notification. An WiFi network, "14thCenturyTravelCo Hotspot" is available. Perhaps he didn't have to leave just yet.....