A/N: The ground shakes. Before a grave, a plain headstone reading "aireyverkhovensky", the dirt shifts and cracks. Suddenly, a pasty-white hand thrusts up from the ground, ragged nails clawing at the soil as the author drags herself out of her grave.
"HA HA HA!" she screeches, "I FINISHED THE FIRST JANAVERSE CASEFIC!" She crawls forward, legs still trapped in her tomb. "I FINISHED THE WHOLE THING!"
She stands dramatically, fixing her glasses and swaying on her feet as lighting flashes in the background in a scene worthy of the best Bela Lugosi movies, for example Plan 9 From Outer Space. "MY READERS NO LONGER HAVE TO WAIT!" the author howls triumphantly to the sky. "I WILL UPLOAD CHAPTERS ROUGHLY ONCE A WEEK!"
And then she shambles off to continue work on Turnabout, I Do and Turnabout of the Night (coming soon!).
January 16 (2054), 5:00 PM, Gatewater Apartments, Room #281
Maria Fey-Armando's phone was ringing. Groaning, she put one arm over her eyes and groped around her bedside table for her phone.
"Fey-Armando," she mumbled into the receiver.
"Heyyy, Maria. Did I interrupt your nap?" Oh, of all the times for her younger brother to call…!
"Miguel, I have the migraine from Hell. This had better be important."
"Your headache can't be that bad."
"I was in a coma two weeks ago, Miguel."
"Alright, alright, sorry," Miguel said, "I just found an old file lying around that you might find interesting, Miss Classified Information."
"Been there, read that," Maria yawned.
"It's about Dad."
Maria's ears pricked up. Their father, Diego Armando, couldn't exactly be said to be related to the assignment given to her by Quetzalcoatl Law Firm (or at least the assignment formerly given to her; she was on medical leave at the moment and the exact nature of her work once she returned was still up in the air), but there must have been some reason for Miguel to call her up like this. Surely it wasn't just lazily-filled paperwork from one of the cases he had handled.
"You interested, sis?"
"Go ahead," Maria said, sitting up.
There was the sound of papers shifting, snapping on the other end of the line. "How much do you know about Dad's sentencing after he murdered our grandmother?"
"Oh," Maria said flatly, "so it's just old court records after all." She laid back down, sighing. Gosh, her head hurt.
"Wait wait wait," Miguel said. There was the distinct sound of coffee being slurped. "Just… what do you know about it?"
"He got life in prison," Maria said, "and his defense attorney was some unknown rookie who never took another case after that. That's all."
"Wrong!" Miguel said brightly (and Maria grimaced at the volume), "there were actually two trials. The first one, he had a state-appointed defense attorney and he was sentenced-…"
"No dramatic pauses, please, Miguel."
Instead, a dramatic slurp of coffee. "He was sentenced to death."
"…I see. And the second one?"
"You could at least act a little surprised or appalled or sad or something."
"Miguel. Headache. Nap. Please hurry up."
"Fine, fine," Miguel said, "anyway, the second one was where he had the unknown rookie who never took another case after that. Apparently, he or she just showed up out of nowhere and convinced him to appeal his sentence."
"That's in the records?"
"Mm-mm. I'm just assuming that because he appealed in mid-April, but was sentenced in early February. I looked for reports of prison incidents or something between then and then, but there wasn't anything."
"So he randomly decided that he didn't want to die… after two months?" Maria said, getting up again and getting herself a cup of xocolatl.
"Well, you know Dad. Can't really say that he decided he didn't want to die."
"True."
"Anyway," Miguel said, "the only real conclusion we can come to is that the appeal was the defense attorney's idea."
"I agree," Maria said, "so who was the defense attorney?"
"…I don't know."
Maria choked a little on her xocolatl. "You don't know? How? Shouldn't there at least be a name on those records?"
"Nope," Miguel said, "the name, the ID number, everything - it's all been blacked out. Like it was scribbled out by a pen."
"Great," Maria said flatly, "take it to the forensics department and see what's under the ink."
"Way ahead of you." It sounded like he was waving the papers around in agitation. "It only looks like it was scribbled out by a pen. I took it to forensics earlier today and they said there wasn't anything underneath it. As far as they can tell, when whoever was filling out the forms was doing so, they just scribbled instead of writing down the defense's information."
"Interesting," Maria said, "think you can get that file to me tonight?"
"Heh." A slurp of coffee. "I knew you'd ask that."
January 16, 5:00 PM, Wright Anything Agency, Roof
"So what exactly did you want with us, Wat?" Alois von Karma-Gavin said, rubbing the back of his neck and looking around. The roof looked the same as ever. The sun was very close to setting, so it was rather dark. The half-moon in the sky looked imposing, ominous. Don't let die Einstellung get to you, Alois thought nervously.
"Yes, we do not have a lot of time to waste," Jana, his sister, said irritably. Alois didn't believe her.
Watson Justice stood at the dangerous edge of the roof, back to Alois and Jana, looking silently over the buildings of this rundown part of Los Angeles. She seemed deep in thought, and looked suitably striking with her long white labcoat flapping against her bare legs in the chilly breeze.
Sie ist nicht kalt? Alois wondered, just as Watson turned around, her light brown hair flaring with sufficient melodrama. There was a look in her eyes that, for some reason, caused the word Lebensmüde to pop into Alois' head. Same with Jana, judging by her expression.
Watson looked from Alois to Jana for a long moment before saying conspiratorially, "what I'm about to say does not leave this roof. Do you two agree?"
"Tja… ja," Alois said.
"Ja," Jana said, then corrected herself, "yes."
Watson climbed back onto the proper side of the railing, stuck her hands deep in her pockets, and said, in the most grave voice Alois had ever heard her use, "Time travel."
It was all Alois could do not to laugh. Jana didn't resist so well. Watson glared at her, although Jana continued chortling.
"I'm serious," Watson said, "do you two remember what Ares said at Alois' trial last month?"
That shut Jana up. "Don't remind me," Alois groaned.
"Clay Justice is crazy," Jana pointed out.
"He doesn't exactly have all of his glasses in the cupboard," Alois added, passing his hand in front of his face in a der spinnt gesture.
"I'm not disputing that," Watson said, "but he was right about the time travel thing."
"…right," Alois and Jana said at the same time.
Watson sighed exasperatedly and pulled out of her coat what looked like an iPad with a taser welded onto it. "Ta-daah," she said unenthusiastically.
"Was… ist das," Alois said, regarding it suspiciously.
"An art project?" Jana guessed.
"No," Watson said shortly, "it's a time travel device. Ares mentioned we were working on it - now that he's not hindering me anymore with his stupid requirements and reports, I've finished it."
"Uh-huh," Jana said drily.
"Really," Watson said earnestly. "Okay, look - I'm going to set it to April 2019." She turned the screen so that Alois and Jana could clearly see it - it looked like the antiquated MASON system given a sloppy input-based overhaul - and punched i [ENTER] [ENTER]. The screen blinked orange and blue for almost a full minute, bathing the roof in complimentary colors. Alois was about to give up (what was he expecting, anyway?) when he noticed that not all of the oranges and blues were coming from the tablet.
"What on earth is that?!" Jana demanded, jumping back and pointing her riding crop shakily at a flickering, semi-transparent orange and blue rectangular plane of what seemed to be gaseous, flowing light.
"A door," Watson said simply, then walked up to it and boldly stuck her arm through. Alois was stunned to see that it did not emerge out of the other side of the 'door' but instead seemed to sharply dissolve halfway though it, as though she had been bloodlessly amputated.
"What happened to your hand?" Alois said, inspecting the door from every angle he could. Jana hesitantly did the same.
"It traveled through time," Watson said, "anything going through the door does. Right now it should be floating above the roof of Wright and Co. Law Offices on April twelfth, 2019, at-" she checked the tablet, "-5:17 in the afternoon, give or take a few hours. I think."
"You think," Jana said flatly.
"I haven't done any major tests yet," Watson said, withdrawing her hand from the door and examining it closely. It looked perfectly fine. "Anyway, the door remains stable for about an hour and a half, or at least it does if there's not much going through it. After that, we'd have to make a new door, which shouldn't be a problem since this device should work at any point in time and space, except as I said there seems to be a few hours of flux around the opening of the door, so that could complicate things in the present if-"
"Halt, halt, halt mal," Alois said, crossing his arms, "Wat, why exactly did you call us to see this?"
"And when did you have time to do this?" Jana said, this time directing her suspicious look towards Watson instead of the time-travel device, "I thought you were studying for the bar exam." Alois gave her an irritated look. Way to change the subject.
Watson waved her free hand dismissively. "I've actually completed my book-studies and I'm scheduled to take the bar exam next week. Don't worry about it."
Alois noted that that didn't actually answer Jana's question, but figured that his question was the more important one anyway. "Wat. Why are we here?"
Watson glanced evasively to the side, then said cautiously, "Remember how I said I haven't done any major tests yet?"
"Ach Götter," Alois exclaimed, burying his head in his hands.
"Why us?" Jana immediately demanded.
"Because it's already happened," Watson said, digging around in her pocket and pulling out some trial paperwork. Jana grabbed it and studied it, blue eyes flicking rapidly from side to side.
"This is from 2019," she said, "the defendant is Diego Armando, on the charge of the murder of Misty Fey. …it's an appeal, a death sentence appeal."
"He got das Todesurteil?" Alois said, blinking, "I thought he got life in prison."
"He did after this appeal," Jana said, "however… there is no one listed for the defense attorney."
"Ja wirklich? Let me see," Alois said, grabbing the paper. Now that he was able to see it more closely, he could tell it was actually a photocopy. But the more noticeable thing was that it looked as though all of the information relating to the defense attorney had been crossed out. "Wat, where did you get this?"
"Your boyfriend brought it to the forensics department to see if there was anything under the scribbles. I happened to be there at the time and got a photocopy of it while the scientists weren't looking."
"Was there anything under the scribbles?" Alois said, handing the paper back to Jana, "by the way, Miguel is ein Freund, not mien Freund."
"I have no idea what that means," Watson said, "also, there was nothing under the scribbles. They said something like… when whoever was filling out the forms was doing so, they just scribbled instead of writing down the defense's information. But I have reason to believe that what should have gone there was actually a time-traveller."
"What makes you say that?" Jana said.
"The timeline always corrects itself," Watson said enigmatically, "so anyway, Jana's really the only one it could be…"
"What?" Jana said.
"How did you come to that conclusion?" Alois said.
Watson held her hand up. "Who else could it be? I don't have my badge at the moment but the first test - the one where we go back to April 2019 - is tonight. I can't go to anyone older than me; anyone older than 25 is far too set in their ways of thinking to even humor me until I open the door." She tilted her head again towards the rectangle of gas-light. "So Jana it is. And Alois, I called you here because I knew you wouldn't let Jana go on her own."
Alois and Jana exchanged glances, then looked back at Watson. "I am not really following your logic," Jana said, "why do you not just wait until next week when you can… appeal Diego Armando's sentence yourself?"
"Because the first test happened tonight," Watson said. She made it sound so obvious. "Besides, I already know that you two become regular time travelers, along with Ares and I."
"Was?" Alois said.
"Why would we want to become 'regular time travelers' along with you and your insane half-brother?" Jana said, taken aback.
Watson shrugged. "It's not so much about what you want," she said, "I just have evidence that it happened."
"Aber…" Alois looked over the low buildings of this part of Los Angeles, "…do you really think our actions are so in Stein gemeißelt?"
"Set in stone," Jana translated with a sigh.
"Well, tell me this," Watson said with a pale smile, "do you think the past is set in stone?"
Again, Alois and Jana exchanged glances. An answer to that suddenly seemed beyond their grasp.
"But," Watson continued, "thanks to the existence of time travel, we can see that there isn't really a difference between the past, the present, and the future. So if the past is set in stone, so are the other two."
"So… fate?" Jana said.
"If that's what you want to call it."
Alois frowned. "…aber, aber we're going back into the past to change something, ja? Doesn't that mean that the past is not set in stone?"
Watson gestured towards the appeal trial record that Jana was still holding. "It's already happened," she said simply.
What a bleak outlook to have on life, Alois thought, but turned to Jana anyway. "What do you think?" he asked her in German. "Should we do it?"
"I don't know," Jana responded in same, "quite frankly, I'm not sure we can even trust Watson Justice anymore."
Alois nodded. "I thought Clay was crazy, but right now she's making him look sane. Do you think she'd hurt us if we refused?"
Jana surreptitiously scrutinized Watson for a moment. Alois did the same. She was looking at them with interest, probably because she had heard her and Clay's names. "I'm not sure I would put it past her. Anyway, she may just grab us and throw us through that door… and I already know that she can pick me up. She does that whenever Maya Valerie and I are picking on Diego."
Alois shook his head. "So what you're saying is we've got no choice."
"I don't know that she can lift you. You should run for it."
"No way. I'm not leaving my little sister behind. What if something goes wrong?"
"What's the worst that can happen?" Jana smirked confidently at him.
Alois and Jana stared at each other for another moment, then turned back to Watson. "We're going," Alois said in English.
"Oh, good," Watson said, with a broad, squinty smile like her father's, "for a minute there I thought I was just going to have to throw you two through the door." She laughed disarmingly, but chills went down Alois' spine regardless.
"She was just kidding, right?" Jana muttered.
"You go first," Alois told Watson. She shook her head.
"If the portal destabilizes while you're going through it, it'll be easier for me to bring you back from the past than it would be for me to bring myself back to the present."
Sounds like das gleiche to me, Alois thought, but stepped towards the door regardless. Hesitantly, he held one gloved hand up to its wavering surface, held it there for a moment, then swallowed hard and pressed his hand through. It offered no resistance, although it did feel faintly warm, and he felt his hand tingle as it disappeared from the present. The feeling subsided after a few seconds.
"If I don't make it back, tell Mama and Papa I love them," Alois muttered to the dark winter night, then stepped through all the way.
April 12 (2019), 3:30 PM, Ayasato Offices and Apartments, Flat 2-B
When Alois had gone through the door, Jana couldn't deny a sort of panic that sprang up at the back of her mind at seeing her older brother - her only brother - dissolve into orange and blue. The door had crackled a few arcs of purple and blue-silver for a second or two, then returned to its previous impassive fluidity. Watson had sighed in relief then.
"Looks like it's still stable," Watson had said, clearly pleased with herself, "alright, Jana, in you go."
Jana had looked at the door with trepidation for a moment, then took a deep breath and ran through it. Might as well get it over with as soon as possible, be done with it before she had the chance to turn back-
There was a brief flash of heat and then she slammed into something warm and solid. By the time she had regained her bearings (she was, in fact, on the floor) her whole body had stopped feeling like pins and needles.
"Jana?"
She looked up. Evidently, the thing she had collided with was in fact Alois.
"Na?"
"I am fine," she said, waving away his offered hand and standing up on her own. She looked around. This didn't look like the roof of the Wright Anything Agency - er, Wright and Co. Law Offices. It looked more like an empty, dark room of similar layout to a certain half of WAA. "Alois, where are we?"
"Ich weiß nicht."
Watson stepped through the door now, looked around, and cursed softly to herself. "I guess it doesn't do as well spatially as it does temporally." She looked at the tazer-tablet device. "Hmm, I take that back. We're probably closer to the Agency's roof than we are to 5:45."
"When are we?" Jana asked, afraid of the answer.
"April twelfth, 2019, just like I said… except we're about two hours and fifteen minutes early."
"Great," Alois said, "at least we're at the right day." He looked at the door, which looked very much the same as it had on the roof of WAA and was actually the only thing illuminating the room now that Watson had put away her time device. "If we go back through that thing, it'll return us to exactly when we left, right?"
"Yes," Watson said, "I'm reasonably certain that the time distortion effect only goes one way. And anyway, 2.25 hours is actually a fantastic margin of error. My first small tests would be off by years. Actually, I think I accidentally sent a pocketwatch to the second century, B.C., when I was trying to send it to myself half an hour in the past…"
Jana ignored her science babble. The important thing right now was to figure out where they were, so she headed to the exit door (or at least what should be the exit door) and boldly opened it, squinting into mid-afternoon sunlight. She stuck her head out into the stairwell and looked around. Yes, this was definitely right on the doorstep of WAA - although it looked much cleaner, and much less run-down.
"You can really tell it's almost forty years younger," Alois said, peering out over Jana's head. Jana nodded absently, then stood straight and turned back to Watson, twisting her riding crop in her hands.
"Now what, Watson Justice?"
Okay, so those of you actually read Long Arm of the Law will probably remember the various conspiracies revolving around Godot's prison sentence. As the summary implies, that's what this fic is about. This will also be the kind of fic where you finish reading it and then look fearfully at the author and wonder "Just what else do they have planned?"
The answer is "a LOT", by the way.