TASM (Time And Space Machine) Chapter 4: Episode 4: Slender Men and Slander, Then, a Doctor Who + Oddworld Crossover fanfic

ASHBRIDGE INHABITANTS PRESENTS…

AN ALIVE EXPERIENCE…

T*A*S*M (TIME AND SPACE MACHINE)

EPISODE 4: SLENDERMEN and SLANDER, THEN

"Unbelievable!" The Professor bellowed as the TASM once again began to hurtle through space and time. "What exactly were you playing at, John?" I'd been silent for a while, but decided to speak up for myself.

"Look, I don't see what the problem is." I told him confidently. "I liked her, alright? It didn't jeopardise the mission, did it?"

"Actually, yes it did jeopardise the mission!" The annoyed Vykker snapped. "Thanks to your incompetence with the Wormhole Generator Mark III, Voltage could still be out there somewhere!"

"What are you talking about?" I asked. "I disintegrated him." What The Professor was saying didn't really seem to add up.

"Wrong, John. Wrong!" He continued to shout unreasonably. "It creates wormholes, it doesn't kill people. You simply teleported him and his ship to some other place in the universe! He could still be out there!"

"Will you stop SHOUTING at me?!" I interrupted. "Anyway, that had nothing to do with Violet."

"Oh, really?" The Professor said, much calmer now. "Tell me, John, whilst you were showing off your masculinity to this girl, did you ever once examine the controls of the device? Did you?" I fell silent. I hated to admit it, but he had a point. I'd been too busy trying to woo Violet to even figure out how to use the Wormhole Generator. Had I really allowed a dangerous super villain to escape? My thoughts were soon interrupted when I heard the unmistakable sound of the TASM touching down. We had landed.

"Ok." The Professor said coolly. "Ok. I'll let this one slide. I suppose it's too late to do anything about it now."

"Thank you." I replied. "Anyway, where are we?"

"I'll give you one guess." He said. Of course. How predictable.

"Earth, by any chance?" I inquired, although it was a pointless question.

"Yes. It's seemingly the same Earth that we've just departed from, though. Albeit in a different time period." The Professor explained. "Looks like we've traveled several years in time, but only a few thousand miles in space. How odd." The Professor used the word 'odd' very loosely here. For instance, he never referred to either himself or the TASM as odd. But when something as comparatively ordinary as this happened, it was indeed 'odd'.

"Well, let's go out and have a look, shall we?" The Professor said, heading towards the door. But before he could open it, three loud knocks resounded through the control room. The Professor looked rather puzzled at this. Clearly, somebody was knocking on the door of the TASM. But how had they managed to find us? The TASM was supposed to be disguised, wasn't it? At that moment, another three knocks could be heard. Short, sharp, but echoing tremendously through the open console area.

"Suppose we'd better get that." I said, breaking the tension.

"Yeah." The Professor replied. "I suppose we should." And with that, he walked closer to the door.

"Wait, Professor." I said, just as his two-clawed hand reached the door handle. "Maybe I'd better answer it." I stepped forwards and The Professor stepped aside as I reached out with my much more unremarkable human hand to open the door.

I opened it just a crack at first, not wanting whoever was knocking to see into the TASM. I discovered that we had landed in a small village. We were in the middle of a street, in fact, probably nestled between two houses. The man at the door appeared middle–aged, quite tall, with short, brown hair and dry, colourless lips. He lacked many distinguishing features, save for his unusually vibrant green eyes. Even the whites of them had an unnerving lime tint. I simply stared at him in silence for a few moments, before he introduced himself.

"Good day to you, sir." The man said in a dull voice, reaching out a hand to shake my own. "I am Detective Inspector Jerome Yales of the Oakside Police Department. I understand there's been a burglary in the area."

"Burglary?" I asked. "On this street?"

"Yes, indeed. Unfortunately, nobody's safe from crime, sir. But we do our best." He smiled through slightly yellow, but perfectly aligned teeth. "Now, I've been going around all the houses on the street, including your own, to see if anything else has been stolen."

"House?" I inquired, quite puzzled for a moment. I stepped out of the TASM and shut the door behind me, before walking towards the curb and turning around to see… a house. A whole house. Huge and unmistakable. Had the TASM really disguised itself as an entire building? I saw a plaque on the door which read '25 Vernon Lane'. Was that where we were? And if so, where was the real 25 Vernon Lane?

"Sir?" Came the Inspector's voice, bringing me back into reality. "All I would like to know is if anything was stolen?"

"Uh, no. I don't think so." I said, rushing back towards the TASM. "Thanks for coming round, though." And with that, I stepped inside, and slammed the door behind me.

"Ah, John." The Professor called. "I think I've discovered why we've been prevented from leaving this planet. It seems that some other time-traveling entity is in the area."

"Professor, why has the TASM disguised itself as a house?" I asked, completely ignoring the Vykker's previous statement.

"A house? Are you sure?" He said. He then proceeded to walk to the door and open it, stepping out into the street in much the same way that I had. After looking around, he came back in.

"Well?" I asked.

"It's not how it seems." The Professor explained. "The TASM has simply disguised itself as a front porch. The rest of the house is separate. We're not even on Vernon Lane."

"Then what's the plaque all about?" I inquired.

"An identification method." He replied. "Vernon Lane, VL. Vykkers Labs, that's where the TASM's from. Vykker Labs 25."

"I see." I assured him. "So if you ever lose the TASM, it can be found by looking for the ID code?"
"Precisely." He answered. "The car in Metroville? Number plate 'VY20 LA5'. The locker on Sevastapol? Locker 'VL 00025'. The-"
"Ok, I get it." I interrupted. "So, why are we here again?"

"Are we getting close?" I asked between breaths. For the last hour, we'd wandered through the woods not far behind the houses. The Professor had pulled out his tracking device once again, and we were searching for the source of some 'temporal energy', as he called it. This was similar, I was told, to the energy that was responsible for forcing the TASM to land in Metroville in the first place.

"I don't know." The Vykker answered shrilly. "The signal keeps moving. And I keep getting another reading. Must be scrambling the signal."

"So what does that mean?" I pondered aloud. "Someone's carrying temporal energy around with them?"

"Not quite." The Professor explained. "Someone, or indeed something, is utilising the energy. This could be through a handheld device or a full-size machine." I understood that the full-size machine he was talking about was in fact the TASM.

After a short while, the signal stopped. Completely. It didn't disappear, but it stopped moving. Not far from our position, either. I felt a sudden cold shiver shoot down my spine. What could be producing this energy, I thought? All of a sudden, I heard the sound of something crashing through the trees in front of us. Leaves crunched and branches snapped, until the thing was visible less than a few feet away. It remained in the shadows for a moment, so I couldn't get a good look. But then it stood, on two legs, and I realised that it was actually DI Jerome Yales. And he looked awful. His smart police uniform was now tattered, his face was bruised and cut. And he had a truly disturbed look in his eye, as if he'd seen something that had made his very blood boil.

"You!" He shouted, pointing directly at me. "I recognise you. And-" He turned to look at The Professor, and for a moment fell completely silent. "Ok…" He eventually continued. "I don't know what the hell you are, but I've seen too much today to question it. I do know that you're a human. I spoke to you the other day, remember? About the burglary?" The other day? What was he talking about?

"Yes, I remember." I replied cautiously. In his current state, I didn't want to provoke him too much. "What happened to you, Inspector?"

"What happened?" He said, the laughed as if I'd asked the most stupid question you could possibly imagine. "Kid, what didn't happen?" He took a deep breath, as if preparing to tell a long story.

"It was about three days ago, I think." He said. "When I'd finished visiting all of the houses on that street, I noticed one at the end which appeared abandoned. I went and knocked on the door, just to be safe. Nobody answered, but I heard strange noises inside, so I opened the door myself and went in. What I discovered in there was truly awful. There were bodies. Lots of them. Murdered. Mutilated. I… I don't want to talk about it too much. But that wasn't all. I heard sobbing. From upstairs. I went up to see who was up there." He suddenly paused.

"Inspector?" I asked. "Who did you find?"

"It looked like a young girl from behind." He explained. "Possibly early teens. As I approached her, she turned to look at me. Her face was grey. She had no eyes, just dark holes where her eyes should have been. I wasn't going to stay any longer. I turned and ran out of the house, only to discover that it had become dark. There are no lampposts on that street, you understand. So I couldn't see a thing. Anyway, I must have accidentally stumbled into the woods. That's when I saw… That's when… I…" He suddenly froze on the spot.

"Inspector?" I pressed on. "What did you see, Inspector?" The man simply raised one arm and pointed over my shoulder. I turned around, and saw exactly what he was indicating to me. And it was horrifying.

It was tall. Really tall. It looked like a man, but it's arms reached almost to the ground. It's face was… well, it was non-existent. By which I mean it had no face. No eyes, no mouth, no nose or ears or hair. Just a blank canvas of a head. I heard a loud beeping from beside me, the sound of The Professor's tracker going wild.

"Professor…" I whispered to the Vykker, who was surprisingly also rooted to the spot. "Is this what we were looking for?"

"Yes." He whispered back. "But under the circumstances, I think it might be best if we studied it some other time."

"Agreed." I nodded. "So what's the plan?" But I knew his answer before it even came. The plan was: 'Run'. So we did.

Whatever breath I'd managed to conserve from the agonising walk we'd just endured soon depleted. The three of us now bolted through the trees with no hesitation. I looked back to see if the slender creature was still on our tail. Although he stood perfectly still, he had indeed moved from his initial position. As we continued to run, and I continued to look back, the thing was still close behind us, every time. It moved as fast as we did, without taking a single step. Perhaps this was something to do with the temporal energy. Perhaps the creature was genetically enhanced to teleport, allowing it to travel at great speed.

After another few minutes of running, we burst into a clearing. The Professor collapsed to the ground, with my forward propulsion forcing me over him. The two of us crashed to the ground, and Inspector Yales also fell to the floor nearby. Getting to my feet, I looked around and saw that the creature was nowhere in sight. I also saw that we were now just a few metres away from a short but wide building. The walls were metal, and there were no windows. There was a door into the building to our left. As I looked on, the door was swung open. Two men and a woman, clad in white lab coats, ran out and quickly escorted us into the building, slamming the door shut behind them.

My head spun wildly after the sudden turn of events was forced upon us. I looked to see The Professor, or Inspector Yales, but it was pitch black. Wherever we were, it certainly didn't seem like an inviting place.

"Ah, Inspector," came a voice from the darkness. The whole room was suddenly illuminated, accompanied with the loud click of a light switch. I looked in the direction of the noise, and saw a man who's face I somewhat remembered, although I wasn't sure where from. He wore a lab coat, much like those that the other people had worn, with a logo emblazoned on the chest which read 'A to B Industries'.

"Who are you?" Inspector Yales asked, taking the words right of my mouth.

"Mr. Yales, I understand you were investigating a burglary in the Oakside village area." The man continued, ignoring the Inspector's previous question. "Did you find the culprit?"

"What do you mean?" He asked, puzzled. "Of course not, I never even got back to the station, thanks to… that thing."

"Thing?" The man inquired. "Mr. Yales, was this thing by any chance… Tall, humanoid, faceless?" The Inspector's face fell. I could see the fear in his eyes once again. How did this man know exactly what we had seen?

"Now look here." The Professor interjected, after remaining quite for a short while. "I've seen some pretty strange things in my field of work, b-"

"Himself included." I pointed out. The man in the lab coat nodded in agreement, although he didn't seem to question the appearance of the Vykker in any way.

"Yes, thank you John." The Professor continued, shaking his head in disapproval. "Anyway, I've seen some pretty strange things in my field of work, but never anything like that. Somehow that creature is harnessing temporal energy. Like it's teleporting through self-created wormholes."

"Well, that's the gist of it." The man in the lab coat said again. "Presumably, it's some kind of defense mechanism. Anyway, Mr. Yales here has been on the run from the subject for a couple of days, isn't that right, Mr. Yales?" The Inspector nodded. "But from our records, it seems that he investigated that burglary just this morning."

I tried to piece everything together in my head. From what the man in the lab coat was saying, it seemed that that thing we'd seen had taken the Inspector out of time itself, for no less than a day or two. What interested me, though, was that the man in the lab coat referred to the creature as the 'subject'. With this in mind, I asked him how he knew about the thing we'd seen in the woods.

"Ah, the subject." He said, repeating that word once more. "Believe me, boy, we know more about that thing than you can imagine. We captured it, from a forest in Europe, actually. We've been studying it's biology for almost two years now, trying to understand it's brilliant 'timeless' properties, attempting to re-create them in a handheld teleportation device. But three days ago, it broke containment. We hadn't seen it since. We thought the trail had gone cold until today, when Mr. Yales here managed to successfully avoid being killed it." The solemn look on the Inspector's face vouched for that fact. Now everything started to make more sense.

"So, presumably you're the leader of this project." The Professor said. "What's your name?" Clearly, like me, The Professor felt that we had somehow encountered this man before.

"My name?" The man said. "Oh, yes, how rude of me. Allow me to introduce myself. I am Doctor Nosson Rotcod, leader of the A to B Industries Scientific Research Division, and inventor of the Wormhole Generator Mark I."

I couldn't believe it. Rotcod? Voltage, alive? Surely not. But he seemed so different to the Doctor Rotcod that we'd met back in Metroville. Somehow… younger. Younger. That was it! It all made sense. This was Rotcod's past, the development of the original Wormhole Generator. Thinking about this gave me an idea. I grabbed The Professor and pulled him to one side, urging Doctor Rotcod to excuse us for a moment.

"Professor, it's him," I whispered excitedly. "It's Voltage. Don't you see? We can stop him!"

"Whoa, calm down John," He whispered back to me. "It's not all as simple as that. If we kill Rotcod now or something, he'll never even become Voltage in the future."

"But that's good, isn't it?" I asked. "Problem solved." It made sense in my head. Why couldn't The Professor see the genius behind this plan?

"No, not solved." He assured me. "Believe me, John. Whilst what happened in Metroville may be in Rotcod's future, it's still in our past. We can't start interfering with our own timeline, or the consequences could be severe. This, here. It would never have happened." He gave me a very serious look, and I realised that he was right. We couldn't change our own past without impacting our future. Classic time travel paradox.

"And anyway, no killing." He said sternly. "I've told you that. Didn't stop you from boldly 'disintegrating' him to impress some girl last time, did it?"

"Oh, for god's sake, will you just let that go?" I snapped. "It's getting old having you nagging me about it all the time. Anyway, what can we do?"

"Well, for now we should tread lightly." He explained. "The slightest change to this place could have incomprehensible ramifications on the timeline." I wasn't quite sure what ramifications were, but judging by the way he said it, they weren't good.

Looking around, I could now see that Doctor Rotcod and Inspector Yales had wandered off down a long corridor. The Professor and I followed them, finding ourselves in a room with nothing but a desk and four chairs in it. On the desk was a tape recorder, which made it seem that this room existed for the purpose of interviewing people. Perhaps there had been others who'd seen this creature, who knew? Anyway, Rotcod walked in first and sat down on the far side of the desk. He gestured for the Inspector to take a seat, but asked that we stand in the corner of the room, and remain silent during the interview. To enforce this, two armed guards were stationed at the door to the room. They were unmistakably the same guards which Rotcod would later use to defend his mansion from intruders when he became Voltage.

"Now, Jerome. Can I call you Jerome?" Rotcod asked, pressing a button on the tape recorder.

"You can." Inspector Yales answered. "But look here, I'm the police officer. Why should I have to answer to you?"

"I can assure you, Mr. Yales, that it would be much easier for all of us if you would co-operate." Rotcod said, with an awkward smile. "All you need to know, Inspector, is that this creature must be captured at all costs. And you can help us with that. Now please, tell us what you saw."

"Ok." He sighed, too worn out to even question anything anymore. "It was really tall, arms almost to the ground. And it's face… that face. That goddamn face!" He yelled, suddenly angered and emotional. "But no, there was no face! There were NO EYES!"

Rotcod urged Jerome to remain calm; something which I wish The Professor had told me to do during our last encounter with the Doctor. But he'd suddenly lost it. He stood up and started waving his arms frantically, shouting that 'it' was coming for him. This all ended with an abrupt shriek, and he passed out, falling to the ground. Everyone in the room suddenly gathered around his unconscious body.

"Poor guy." The Professor said. "To see what he's seen, I don't envy."

"He said it was coming for him." I pointed out. "What does that mean?" But my question didn't need an answer. As soon as I looked up, I knew exactly what he meant.

The door out into the corridor was now wide open, and the lights flickered abnormally. But what I saw was unmistakable. It was the creature. The one we'd seen in the woods. The one Jerome had just described. It had come.

"It's there!" I shouted, pointing out into the corridor. In a flash, everyone was on their feet. The two guards ran out into the corridor, with Rotcod right behind them. The Professor and I helped a slightly dazed Jerome back to his feet, and the three of us also ran out of the room.

"You can't stop it!" The Professor yelled, seeing the two guards readying their guns.

"We can try!" One of them said boldly, and they opened fire. But The Professor was right. The creature simply absorbed the bullets like a black hole of death. It moved forwards, zipping from point to point with no intermediate steps. The gunners ceased firing to reload. Then it was right in front of them. It stretched it arms out to the two men. Within an instant, they were completely gone.

"I don't like this!" I shouted between breaths, as myself and the remaining members of the group sprinted down the corridor towards the building's exit. Reaching the end, I forced my way through the double doors, with the other three hot on my tail. Once the last person had bolted through the door, I slammed it shut.

"That won't help, John." The Professor said. "Nothing will stop that thing, you know." Although I knew he was right, shutting the door still made me feel safer.

"No." I said. "There is one thing we can do. But we'll need the TASM." I saw The Professor's eyes light up. He knew that it could work. The prison cell on board, the one we'd used to trap the Xenomorph on Sevastapol. It was inescapable, even if you did have the ability to teleport. We could simply trap it in the cell, and then release it elsewhere.

"Sorry, boys." Rotcod said, interrupting my train of thought. He pulled from behind his back a gun-like device. The Wormhole Generator Mark I. "But I can't let word get out about this thing, now can I?"

"Do your worst." I said confidently. "You can't kill us with that thing."

"Oh, really?" replied Rotcod, before firing of a shot at the still wincing Inspector Yales. I shouldn't have said that. "I think you'll find my friend that this device, whilst incapable of killing people directly, can be used to teleport you to, say… the vacuum of space. Or a very high cliff."

"Oh." I said. "Well in that case, please don't shoot." Rotcod laughed. He was insane, I was sure.

"You want to know the truth, kid?" He chuckled. "You want me to tell you and your prune-headed pet here the whole story?"

"Please." I nodded quickly, before The Professor had time to comprehend that insult.

"This thing that I caught. This being." He said. "The truth is, it was never really trapped. It can escape from any containment you can imagine. And it did. I tried everything to keep it under control." He suddenly began to weep uncontrollably. "You have no idea how many people have died at the hands of this being. How many lives lost! My family, my friends. Everyone I knew and loved, gone. I've come so close to losing everything." Tears streamed down Rotcod's face wildly now. He was genuinely upset. Terrified. Alone in the world. Perhaps this was what would later drive him to become a super villain. But now wasn't the time for thinking. We had to act.

The Professor made the next move. He lunged towards Rotcod and tore the Wormhole Generator Mark 1 from his hands, knocking him to the ground. He then stepped back quickly and shouted for me to get ready. I placed a hand on the gun and braced myself for the teleportation. But at that moment, the sound of static rang out through the clearing. I looked over at Rotcod and saw that the creature was now right behind him. I yelled to him to duck as a spectacular beam of white light smashed the ground beneath our feet, and we were gone.

All of a sudden, we were back aboard the TASM. No Rotcod, no creature. No Yales. The Professor was automatically at the control panel, ready to take off.

"Will Rotcod be OK?" I asked, still in confusion at the events that had just unraveled. "He won't die, will he, we can't have changed time, can we, I-"

"John, John." The Professor said calmly. "Do not fret. We're still here, aren't we?" He was right. We were still alive. Time hadn't re-written itself.

"So that means that…" I began.

"The Doctor survived," The Professor nodded. "He escaped the creature. According to my records, he spent the next decade searching for it, scouring the Earth to try and bring it down. To prevent it from bringing any more harm. But it was futile. So he gave up, and turned to a life of crime. As for the creature, it's long gone. Teleported off-world, I reckon. But it'll still be out there somewhere. Seeking it's next victims."

I looked onto the screen of one of the TASM's many monitors, out into the vast expanse of space as we took off. And I wondered: where had it gone? Where had this terrifying wonder of nature disappeared to? And what planet, what civilization, and what individual would it find next?

"Who knows?" I said quietly to myself. "Who knows?"

YOU HAVE BEEN WATCHING T*A*S*M

WRITTEN, EDITED and PRODUCED by THEMANFROMMUDOS

PUBLISHED by FANFICTION

STARRING:

JOHN SMITH as HIMSELF

DI JEROME YALES and THE OAKSIDE POLICE DEPARTMENT

DOCTOR NOSSON ROTCOD and THE A TO B INDUSTRIES SCIENTISTS & GUARDS

PROPS and SETS:

A TO B INDUSTRIES SCIENCE DIVISION RESEARCH FACILITY

TITLECARD ARTWORK: