A Preposterous Proposition
Four friends were taking a stroll through the streets
These were the humanoid cephalopod inhabitants of Inkopolis that lived during what was known as the mollusc era.
The first two were well known by anyone who ever gets out of bed or turns on a television. They were the inkling sisters-who-are-actually-cousins Callie and Marie. Inkopolis' most famous pop idols, news anchors and festival hosts, and granddaughters of the historically revered but little known to the modern public Great Turf War veteran Cap'n Cuttlefish. The two of them were collectively known as the Squid Sisters.
The remaining girl among them was named Elizabeth. Her closest friends knew her as Agent Three, but everyone who knew her simply called her Bessie. She was close friends with the Squid Sisters and the three of them spent so much time together that she was practically considered family.
Lastly there was the octoling boy named Callum. He was Bessie's boyfriend and renegade of the Octarian forces, who was adjusting to a life of freedom and generally spent his free time on Turf Wars disguised as an inkling.
As the four friends walked among the buildings, dusk was falling and the street lights were coming on, but it was still too bright for them to have a noticeable effect. It had been a blistering hot day, and the dropping temperature was a welcome relief. The general air of tension unwinding was equally welcome in that the final Splatfest, Callie VS Marie, had recently been announced, and just a few days earlier there were some rather baffling news reports about newly discovered sunken scrolls that had turned out to be fakes.
They passed by Judd the cat, who was perched on a fire hydrant with his tail gently undulating. His chubby cheeks bounced as he spoke when he saw the four of them: "Well, if it isn't Agent Five."
"It's Agent Three," Bessie shrugged off the silly feline.
As the quartet were sliding down on the spectrum that stretches from excitement to relaxation, they eagerly discussed their expectations for the final showdown, with rowdy giggles occasionally bursting from Callie and Marie periodically sighing with amusement.
"Hello, Callum." A man's voice was softly but clearly heard from an alley as they were passing it, and Callum froze in place, his face expressionless. After one or two seconds he looked around, ensuring nobody was watching, and then he spoke: "This way. Quickly." And he ducked into the dark alley. His puzzled friends followed.
Callum crawled through underneath the raised section of a garbage skip with his cohorts on his heels and the four came upon a garbage can right behind it. Nobody really questioned why a rubbish bin would be in such an impractical and unnecessary place, but in fact this was exactly the point. Callum lifted the lid and turned to Marie, gesturing toward the bin. "After you."
Marie frowned the frown of one who wondered if someone was serious, and leaned over to peer into the bin. "In we go!" Callie joyfully exclaimed as she lifted her cousin up by the ankles and, amid Marie's struggling protests, toppled her face-first into the bin. Marie winced and stretched out her hands, expecting to hit a tin floor if she was lucky or to get her upper body buried in trash if she wasn't, but found to her surprise the bin was not only devoid of both trash and a floor, but that there was not even any ground underneath it. Marie found herself sliding down a tube which gently curved until she was lying horizontally on her stomach. The tube's end opened up into what she couldn't believe was an underground laboratory. All around her were strange machines and equipment, beeping and flashing small lights. Some objects were covered in white sheets.
"Wheeeee!" Marie heard the unmistakable gleeful cry of her cousin growing louder from the tunnel and took it as a sign that she had better move away.
"How did you know that garbage bin was a secret entrance?!" Marie asked her cousin in amazement when she came to a halt.
Callie gasped and her eyes grew in astonishment. "It was?!" She looked around in disbelief. "Whoa, look at this place! I had no idea this was here!"
The two of them fell silent as they had suddenly become aware that there was an octoling man standing a few feet in front of them. They were soon joined by Bessie and then by Callum, who walked up to the man and greeted him. He turned to the girls. "Bessie, Callie, Marie… I'd like you all to meet my father."
Three inkling mouths silently fell open. Bessie spoke after a few seconds.
"You never told me you had contact with your dad!"
"Yes, I apologise. His existence is need-to-know. The Octarians think he's dead. My dad does important work behind the scenes. I come and visit him more often than you'd think. If he's decided to reveal himself he must have very important business with you."
"You may call me Doctor Akkoro. It is an absolute pleasure to finally meet you in person, Agent Three. And you, too, Callie and Marie. And may I just say I thoroughly admired your work retrieving the Great Zapfish. I apologise for the Great Octoweapons. Their upgrades since the Great Turf War that allowed them to draw power from zapfish were largely based on some of my work."
Dr Akkoro continued: "On to the matter at hand. Do you know where Splatfest themes come from?"
"Yeah!" Callie was first to answer. "We get word from On High through – ahh – the sacred device that makes pictures!"
"That is accurate, but not the full story," Akkoro explained. "The machine is called a fax machine. Millennia ago, there were millions upon billions of them throughout the world. They were used to send messages among people much like squidphones do today, but not entirely. One of them would read a document or picture and transmit it to another. What happened was that some of these signals bounced against a surface in space, billions of miles away, and the signal travelled back and finally reached the machine you two use to announce your Splatfests."
"That's impossible!" Marie said, not quite convinced. "The upcoming Splatfest will be Callie VS Marie! How could they have known about us so long ago?"
"That brings me to my next point:" the octoling continued. "Do you remember the bizarre news stories you two covered around the time of the last Splatfest announcement?"
"The sunken scrolls?" Bessie recalled "Archaeologists found three new sunken scrolls but as they were being restored they were quickly dismissed as fakes."
"But then soon after the last Splatfest announcement someone got into the institution where they were being kept and stole them!" Callum added.
"Indeed," confirmed Dr Akkoro as he opened a drawer behind him. "That someone… was me." He turned back around to face his young guests and produced three ancient looking pages. "I have carbon dated them and confirmed that they are in fact genuine. They date back from around the same era as Sunken Scroll 21!"
The four stared in disbelief. They could not read the language but it was obvious that these were posters promoting three live shows, all of the Squid Sisters.
"What does this mean?" Callie wondered.
"It doesn't mean anything." Marie wasn't convinced "We could not possibly have performed three live shows ages before the Mollusc era. There is a logical explanation for this."
"You've never seen these posters before, correct?" Dr Akkoro pointed at a corner of one "Look closer."
The poster unmistakably bore the autographs of both of the Squid Sisters. In fact, all three of them did.
"This is impossible…" Marie began.
"This is a sign that the two of you must travel back in time to the human era and perform these three live shows. I don't know why, but the fabric of the space-time continuum requires it."
"How are we going to do that?" Callie asked wide-eyed, transfixed by what she was hearing
"I must build a time machine to send you back. It will take me five years."
Marie stood up, relieved. "Well, that was a fascinating story. We'll talk again in five years when you've completed the time machine!"
"Oh, that won't be necessary," Callum's father interrupted. "My future self from five years from now brought me the time machine this morning! I just got back from dropping him off in his own time." He tugged at a sheet and it flopped to the ground, revealing a light metallic structure shaped roughly like a large, circular tent. "Behold, the time machine!"
The Inklings were dumbstruck. "My father is telling the truth," Callum defended. "I trust him with my life."
"If Callum trusts him, I trust him." Bessie supported
"This isn't something I'm asking you to do because I want you to," Akkoro held up one of the posters. "It's something you are going to do, because all of this has already happened."
Both Squid Sisters were silent.
"I'm going to pay you a lot of money." Akkoro finally said plainly
"I've always wanted to travel to the past." Callie said cheerfully
"And I won't object to a whole extra era's worth of fans." Marie added. "We're in!"
"So, when will you be taking them?" Bessie asked the Octoling man.
"Oh, I'm not taking them. I've got to stay here and start building the time machine so that I can bring it back to myself five years from now." Akkoro gestured toward his son. "Here's your time pilot."
"Me?" Callum was confused "I don't know how to work a time machine!"
"You will if you use what will, for the next five years, be my greatest invention yet."
Callum's eyes widened. "You're… letting me use the Thinking Cap?!"
The so-called Thinking Cap was a very powerful computer that interacted directly with the user's brain. As the name implies it was operated while placed on the user's head. The most notable feature of the item was that it could be used to upload or download large amounts of information to or from the user's mind, essentially enabling them to gain large volumes of knowledge in an instant, such as learning how to expertly operate a machine you have never even laid eyes on. It could also connect to the internet (it had an exceptionally powerful safe search filter), and translate entire webpages before downloading them to the user's head. Its design resembled a very convincing inkling wig and it came with a pair of display goggles that looked like the markings around an inkling's eyes, the combined effect of which also made it useful for octolings who needed to roam the streets of Inkopolis unnoticed in broad daylight.
"Useful device, this cap," Akkoro praised his invention. "I used it this morning to copy the blueprints for the time machine from my future self. Now I can get started on building it! But I'll need it back to finish the time machine so take good care of it, okay? I've also added a few tips to make your journey a bit easier. You leave tomorrow and you'll be back in time to host the Splatfest. Oh, and before I forget…"
Dr Akkoro handed Callie and Marie a small Perspex box. "This is your stage equipment."
Callie squinted at the seemingly hollow cube. "I can't see anything."
"I call them nanomikes." Sure enough, there were what looked like two tiny black dots in the box. They connect to the thinking cap via Bluebeak. Just stick them over your beauty marks and they'll be invisible.
Callum donned the cap and his eyes rolled back in their sockets as a surge of knowledge coursed through his central nervous system. He now knew the time machine inside and out.
"Dad, why does the time machine have four seats?"
"You didn't think I'd let you go without Bessie, did you?" Callum Akkoro Sr. winked at his son.
As the sun came up, the Squid Sisters were saying their goodbyes to their grandfather at his cottage in Octo Valley. Bessie came to pick them up and also said a quick good-bye to Cap'n Cuttlefish.
"You kids look out for one another!" He was being a typical parent. "And don't get yerselves into trouble!"
"It'll be fine, Gramps!" Callie reassured.
"We just have to do three shows and we'll be right back." Marie comforted.
"Let's get going, you two! Callum's waiting!"
Callie pulled out the handle on her rolling suitcase and Marie hung her carry bag over her shoulder. The three of them arrived in Inkopolis where Callum had already begun powering up the time machine.
"Strap in, Ladies. We're history!"