NINE
Maccus was confused.
Now, to be completely honest, this wasn't something that was terribly uncommon with our dear first mate of the Dutchman crew.
He wasn't exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer.
A few clowns short of a circus.
No, not the brightest bulb in the factory.
And so on.
So, one minute everything had been... normal. As far as he could tell.
And then there had been the—those weird people. He didn't understand them, he didn't like them, and most of all, they were magic. Everything went black at some point. And then he'd woken up to people examining him, though they'd all cowered away as he sat up.
And found himself handcuffed and in restraints.
Apparently, Davy had warned them of his not-exactly-sweet temper.
You see, you don't exactly have to be clever to bag a spot as first mate on board one of the most infamous vessels in the world. Armed with big ambitions, heavy fists and a loud voice, you could accomplish almost everything, in those days. And it also helped that he was an incredibly tall and well-built sort of person.
Still, his captain had tried—uhm, tried—to explain it all to him. It was sort of weird, and Maccus wasn't sure he understood. He hadn't known the future would have been like this... to be honest, he'd never really... thought about it.
He supposed that things would be different. Just not so... white.
And shiny.
Yes, so Maccus was having doubts, and he was a bit annoyed too, but most of all...
Maccus was confused.
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"He's not here," Knighton finally sighed.
"I knew it," Mosquito said, pursing her lips, "He's not in bed, he's not anywhere in the house." She folded her arms and sighed.
"What do we do now?" Spider asked, looking around.
"I suppose we—shh!" They hushed, as the door opened, and a man walked in. They all looked to each other, and back to the man, who had stopped walking and was staring at them.
"Are you Cutler Beckett?" Knighton asked.
"No... I'm the butler..." The man said, his eyes darting around at the six oddly-dressed people.
"Do you know where Cutler Beckett is?" Knighton raised an eyebrow, and pointed a revolver at the man—or it looked like a revolver. It was, of course, the same as the lasers, but they had decided that they needed something that could be seen as threatening to the people of this time. They'd had enough of the 'what is that?' and so on.
"I-I-I..." The man swallowed, "He's on board the Endeavour... out to sea on business..." He blinked, his eyes fixated on the revolver, "Wh-who are you?"
"It doesn't matter," Knighton smiled, and after quickly changing the setting of the laser on the beck of the gun, he pulled the trigger. Nothing shot from the muzzle, there was no 'ptchoom!' noise. The laser beam was simply a small, orange dot hovering on the man's temple; within seconds, he was passed out on the floor. He would wake up in approximately five hours with no memory whatsoever for the past couple of days—he couldn't be allowed to remember this event, and the force of the beam knocked out was sure to obliterate his memory, and perhaps scramble a few brain cells too. Oh well.
"I suppose it's back to the future then," Blue said in an amused voice, "I've always wanted to say that."
"Let's go," Flea grunted, and they turned and strode from the lavishly decorated manor, trying not to be secretly impressed by the colour, the richness and the glitziness of the mansion that they had intruded on.
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"About the Endeavour... hmm..." a scientist tapped his chin, "We're going to try and get this pod to land on the boat—but co-ordinates could be a tiny bit messed-up. It may land in the sea; but don't worry, it's waterproof," he added hastily, as Knighton folded his arms, "If it lands in the sea, simply come back."
"Right," Knighton said, "Better."
"We're not sure where on the Endeavour the pod will land, so, uh, try to make the best of it, will you?" The scientist asked.
"Yeah, we'll handle it," Knighton said, turning towards the rest of his team, "Are we all ready?" There were various, unenthusiastic mutters of 'yes, sir'. "Good," Knighton said, walking towards the pod, swinging the hatch open and stepping in.
"This might not end well," Blue muttered as he sat himself down.
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As they all clambered out of the pod, Fly suddenly stood stock still, staring at something.
"Look at this..." She said, softly. Their pod had landed somewhere on the back deck—on top of a coil or ropes and an unfortunate barrel. And on one side of them was... the pod. Their time travelling pod; again. There were... two of them.
"But we've never been here before," Knighton said with a frown. Then he noticed a small sticky note stuck on the side of the pod. He stepped forwards and peeled it off, his eyes scanning over the writing. Knighton—heart, and then a long line of seemingly unconnected numbers. Keep for future reference. How odd.
"I think that's our ship... from the future," Blue said, "And that note is from us from the future," He took a look at it, "Those numbers must mean something."
"Yes..." Knighton shook himself off, "Well, let's go find this Beckett. Our future selves are somewhere on this ship too... good, eh?" He grinned and began walking through the Endeavour—it was eleven at night, again, and the ship was at anchor; everyone was asleep.
"This means," Mosquito said slowly as they walked down a small corridor, "That at this very moment in time, there are at least six sets of us out there, kidnapping and so on." They all mulled this over for a while.
"Wow," Spider said finally, "That's quite..." He trailed off, as a group of people walked out of a room just ahead of them.
It was them. It was themselves.
Themselves from the future.
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"Alright, I remember this," The future-Knighton said. He was carrying a small chest under one arm. "You're the past us. I can remember this happening."
"This has got to be a first," Mosquito said, "I'm meeting my future self!" The future-mosquito waved, and the past-mosquito waved back. The rest of them just stared at each other—uh, themselves—warily.
"Let's get going then," Said the only figure they didn't recognize. He was dressed in fine seventeenth-century garb, with a long jacket covered in sequins, a ruffled shirt, with breeches, a cravat, and buckled shoes. He had on a wig, that fell back into a white ponytail, held in black by a black, velvet bow. He was rather small in stature, and wearing a waistcoat, showing off a slim figure—the height of fashion, in those days.
"Who are you?" Asked Flea, frowning.
"Me?" The man arched an eyebrow, "I'm Cutler Beckett."
"We've got to kidnap Cutler Beckett, so... you're our man, right?" Spider asked, seeming to put two and two together at last. But he was wrong.
"No, this is future-Beckett... we've already kidnapped him. And now we're back. The Beckett you want it just down there," Future-Spider hefted a sack on his back and nodded down the corridor, to a door that was slightly ajar.
"Why did you come back?" Blue asked.
"To get this," Future-Knighton lifted up a small, ornately decorated, wooden chest; from inside, there was a dull thumping.
"And the sack?" Asked Blue.
"Oh, that's just his majesty deciding that while we were here, we might as well bring a nice array of clothes back," Future-Spider scowled at future-Beckett.
"You'll have to do the same thing too. Remember to pass the sticky-note on," Future-Knighton gave a wink.
"But what does it mean?" Our Knighton interjected.
"Oh, you'll find out," Future-Knighton smiled, "We have to go now." He jerked his head, and they all began to walk off, "Oh, and be careful of that Beckett. He's annoying."
"I'm not annoying, I'm just always right," Beckett muttered.
"Point proven," Future-Knighton said, and then they were all gone. Future-Knighton seemed... a lot nicer then the past-Knighton. The team all looked at each other.
"Well, that was... a unique experience," Fly said at last.
"Huh... let's go get this Beckett guy," Knighton muttered, slipping the sticky-note into a pocket, "And at some point in the future, we are going to meet our past selves. And that is going to happen." Knighton was not looking forwards to experiencing that—and I am not looking forwards to writing it.
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Knighton pushed the door open gently, peering through the half-darkness. Inside, there was a wardrobe, a desk, a couple of cabinets, and a huge, four-poster bed, with a curtain surrounding it; even though they were on a boat! Fly pursed her lips—there was a time, long ago, when she would have killed for a bed like that; a real-life little princess' bed. They walked quietly into the room, and Knighton glanced around, before walking up to the bed.
Cautiously, he pulled the curtain around the bed aside... and there was a loud, resounding click as a pistol was made ready to fire. Knighton stared at the black, soulless hole in front of him—the barrel of a gun.
"Luckily, I'm a light sleeper," Came a preening voice; one which he had heard just moments before. "Who are you and what are you doing here?" Cutler Beckett demanded. A question they were asked often.
NB: Thanks much for reviews! All are loved. Things are going get interesting... as for the future-past moment, I've written the scene in which Knighton and the crew go and meet their past selves... and it's not pretty. Anyway, if anyone has any questions, feel free to ask; for some reason, I feel like I've missed a lot of stuff. But you do find out more about the future-world later on in the story.
And I don't know why I made Maccus so incredibly dim. It's fun. :)