p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;"At first I was struck dumb. But then I figured a little math and felt extremely sarcastic as I said these next words. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Oh, so I suppose I slept for 478 years and nobody bothered to shake me, huh? And I suppose that I didn't age during that time or didn't die from no food or water. And you know what? (Read in this next part extremely sarcastically.) I'll bet the Doctor is here too, right? And River Song and Amy and Clara and Rose and Rory around here somewhere. And there's probably some genius kid named Ender running this place, right? I'm Sherlock and John are around here somewhere although I'm not sure how they got here."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" Instead of looking annoyed or hurt, the man looked very appalled./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "You know of such people?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Let's just say that if I majored in two things in college it'd be on how to deduce a Sherlock crime scene and fly a TARDIS."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Is that a yes?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Of course it's a yes! I know everything there is to know about them! You still haven't' answered my question though."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" His face was painted with a wondered relief as he asked me to follow him. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "You know, I think I'm kind of, um, comfy right here." I wasn't about to follow some strange guy into a weird prank. Well, I thought it was prank at the time. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Fine. Don't follow me. In fact, I'm begging you not to follow me. You wouldn't be able to follow me anyway, you're too weak."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" So I followed him. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" What I saw was something that cannot be explained with the 26 letters of the American alphabet. Shakespeare with all his "thee"s and "thou"s couldn't express the feelings I had when I entered the underground world. Name any emotion and I had it. Sacred? Totally. Excited? Definitely. Nervous? Undoubtedly. Hopeful? Of course! /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" I literally felt EVERYTHING. Later I would find that this was the place where everything was, so it was no wonder I, an outsider whose brain was blind to the marvelous happenings that took way in there, was overwhelmed with the materials of feelings and sights that I felt and saw. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Whoa."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Is that it?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "What do you mean?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "'Whoa'? You see all of this and that's all you have to say?" The guys face was obviously confused, if not irritated. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "It's what you say when you don't know what to say. What are those machines doing?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" Giant metallic things were slowly operating in the vast space before me. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "We call them the Finders. They search back into who knows where and bring things back. To explain a little better, they use /spanspan style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;"time/spanspan style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" to search in. When you told me that you knew several of those people you mentioned, I figured you could help us discover who they were. You must have gotten sucked in by the Finders as well."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "But what about," I paused to think my answer through. "But what about the people who were all "memory loss" and forgetting things? What about the 478 years I was asleep? What about the people in black who took me away?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" The boy ran his fingers through his sandy blond hair and sighed. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "So many questions! Do you ever shut up?! Anyway, the Finders can mess up usual time happenings, such as memory, while they are searching. It is also suspected that while they work, time is irrelevant. We were the people in black, we found you lying unconscious in one of the Finder's chambers; the memory of getting sucked in and us picking you up must have gotten mixed together in your brain." He breathed this phrase irritatedly and quickly./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" Instructing me to go get dressed in the clothes he brought, he added,/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "It's the rules."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" In my mini apartment I replaced my jeans with pants that were basically leather leggings they were that skin tight (But the pants were /spanspan style="font-style: italic; vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;"super/spanspan style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" soft so I ignored it), and my jean jacket for a black t-shirt and the coolest bad-hog leather coat I've ever seen in my life. But the boots. I put them on and sat staring wistfully at my high top converse. The knee high, slimming tight boots with awesome laces going way up were probably the coolest thing I will ever see in my lifetime. But my Chuck Taylors.../span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Why aren't you wearing the boots?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "I didn't feel like wearing them." This was probably the most snobby-girl thing I had ever said in my life. He looked at me shocked. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Around here we don't go by what we feel, we go by the rules. Now put the boots on!"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" I slumped back to my quarters and slipped the stupid shoes on while thinking what a jerk that stupid guy was. I came back and he nodded in approval. (I know this last paragraph sounded like a stupid fashion-girl conversation, but it will come in handy to remember it later on.) /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "What's you're name?" I had just now realized that I hadn't called him by his name yet. He eyed me oddly. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Why do you wish to know?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Because currently at this time in place and history, in this metal and leather underworld, in my messed up futuristic life, you are the only person I know. So what is your name?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Tom."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Oh."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "What?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Nothing."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "You sound disappointed. A little shocked. Why?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Well it's just I expected something a little cooler, or more space-agey, like Spauk or Ender or Captain Kirk or Kahn or Four or-"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Why do you think this?" /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "I don't know. In all the movies the...guy (I was going to say tall cool dude with awesome hair, but after him being a hothead about the shoes I wasn't feeling like complimenting him) has a name that is...is…"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Is what?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Isn't Tom."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Will my name affect your ability to name the items from the past?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "No."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Than it is irrelevant to this conversation. I'm taking you to the Head Master. He'll have a job for you."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" Tom walked quickly down the sidewalk of U.F.O; I had to jog to keep up with him./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Don't get me wrong, Tom is a nice name, it really is. I like it."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" He didn't even look my way. I felt like a jerk. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "This is the Head Master's door. Go in and tell him that you need a job as an Identifier."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Why can't you come in with me?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Certain reasons."/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" So I turned the handle on the metal door and stepped in, leaving the busy walkway behind me. You won't believe who I saw sitting on that chair. You won't believe me. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Spauk?!"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" His pointy ears perked up and he looked confused for a moment./span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "What? I am the Head Master. What do you want?"/span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" I gulped and tried not to burst from my major fan-girl craziness. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" "Um, I'm a huge fan. I know you don't know that, but I am. Oh man, Spauk!" I stepped forward and held my hands to my throat. /span/p
p dir="ltr" style="font-size: 16px; font-family: Consolas; white-space: pre-wrap; line-height: 1.38; margin-top: 0pt; margin-bottom: 0pt;"span style="vertical-align: baseline; background-color: transparent;" He just looked at me. /span/p