Ticket to Anywhen

by Glide10001

The television show has been cancelled and the gang has broken up. Their adult lives include financial problems and relationship issues. In an effort to find something to bring in some money, Fred accepts a job solving a mystery for the gang's old employer. But he has to get the entire gang back together and then the mystery is unlike anything they've ever tackled.

3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

It didn't take super sleuths to figure out what Clive had done with the airline tickets. The gang had three rows to themselves. Fred and Daphne were in the first row, Shaggy and Velma in the second, and Scooby in the third. Thus, replicating the most common seating arrangement in the Mystery Machine. Of course, that didn't account for the Scooby factor.

Upon arrival at the airport, Scooby had walked up to the ticket counter with his ticket in his mouth and wordlessly placed his ticket on the counter. The agent behind the counter had looked down at the top of Scooby's head and with no recognition said the magic words.

"Excuse me. Who is this dog's owner?"

A gasp went up from everyone in the area that had recognized Scooby Doo.

Scooby rose up on his hind legs, placed his paws on the counter, and said, "Ry rhat?"

Now the agent could see the tag at Scooby's throat with the 'SD' prominently displayed and knew what creek he was up and the condition of his paddles. The legal protections provided by the United States Government for Scooby Doo's status were so strong that even the airlines were afraid of them. A manager very literally ran from behind the counters and arrived on the scene. Scooby said nothing further but waited as feverish typing occurred and he walked away from the counter with a first-class ticket and a pass for him and one guess to await their flight in the Platinum Lounge which included a food bar. The food bar was not up to the pressure placed on it by Shaggy and Scooby and remained empty for three hours following their departure as stocks were replenished.

In other words, a normal flight experience with Scooby Doo.

Scooby boarded several minutes earlier than the rest of the gang as they waited for Zone 7 to be called and Shaggy found himself once again in the uncomfortable silence that occurred whenever they were together nowadays. He didn't remember silences back in the old days. Hours of driving and yet they continued to talk and exchange thoughts and ideas. Fred railing on about trap technology. Velma about science. Daphne about fashion or Blake family issues. Shaggy about food. And Scooby adding pithy punctuations to whatever was being discussed. He assumed that there had to have been silent periods on the long trips but they would be the relaxed quiet of being alone with your thoughts while still surrounded by those you loved. And he did love the gang as much as he loved anyone else in the world. He was suddenly seized with the desire to wrap his arms around all of them right in the boarding gate and sweep them up into a mammoth group hug. But Fred would probably hit him and Velma would hit him harder and there would be a scene. So, he stood and stared at the grey hairs running through Velma's ponytail which was now reaching to just between her shoulder blades.

The silence was blessedly disrupted by a young couple with a small child who hesitantly approached.

The presumed mother spoke first, "Excuse me. Are you the Scooby Gang?"

Fred responded, "We're Mystery, Incorporated. Yes."

They had been staring at Daphne and now looked at the other three. The reason for this was obvious. While Fred's hair was shorter, Shaggy was clean-shaven and kept his long hair neatly combed and frequently tied back in a ponytail of his own at the restaurant, and Velma looked almost completely different, Daphne continued to sport what she chose to call the 'Daphne I' look. At her 30th birthday party which Shaggy and Scooby had attended and Velma had not, she had shown sketches of the 'Daphne II' look which she planned to roll out officially on her 32nd birthday. But for now, she was the one that still looked almost identical to her former self of the show years.

"Is Scooby Doo with you?"

Shaggy answered, "He's in first class, as usual."

The young woman smiled, "Really?"

Shaggy shook his head, "It's a long story."

"And you're Velma, right?"

Velma looked up from her phone with a forced smile, "Yeah, that's me." She didn't like these encounters and didn't like being singled out. She waited for it.

"I used to be so jealous of you. When we were dating, Robbie had pictures of you all over his room."

"His bedroom?"

The woman nodded.

"Great. Good to know."

Velma didn't want to look but she couldn't stop herself and her eyes moved to the face of the husband, apparently Robbie. He was holding their child who was a little girl of about two years of age in his left arm. Velma caught him just as he was wiping something from his daughter's face. He noticed her looking at him and smiled a polite smile and turned back to continuing to work on removing whatever was on his child's face. He was paying no attention to the conversation whatsoever as his focus was solely on his daughter. Velma felt relieved and slightly embarrassed. She hadn't realized how tense she had been until the stress began to flow out of her shoulders.

The woman was still speaking only to Velma, "We loved your show."

Velma remained Velma, "Now, if we could just clone you a few hundred thousand times, we'd be in business."

"We have all of your DVDs. We still watch them all the time with our little girl."

"Did you buy them retail?"

"We bought them at stores. Yes."

"You are now some of my favorite people."

Velma was being a little too Velma. Daphne stepped in, "We always appreciate our fans. Is there anything you would like? Autographs? Selfies?"

The woman's focus never left Velma, "Can I have a selfie with you… Velma?"

Daphne, Fred, and Shaggy in unison, "Uh-h-h-h-h-h-h." Velma didn't do selfies. Ever.

Velma saw the look in the woman's face. She had seen the look in others before but never understood it. There was something there. Something important. Something she just didn't get. She wished she understood people better at an emotional level but she didn't. She was who she was. Her glance then moved to the husband… the father who remained immersed in whatever world he shared with his little girl. Velma felt like an interloper in that world and this feeling was confirmed when he noticed her staring and gave her a slightly confused smile. This was not where she belonged.

She looked back to the woman, "Okay."

Daphne's mouth froze in mid apologetic explanation and she shut it slowly. She and Fred and Shaggy watched in amazement as Velma allowed the woman deep into her personal space for the shot.

Fred offered, "I can take the picture for you."

The woman's response was immediate and almost a snap, "No." Then she looked over at him and continued, "Thank you. I would prefer for this to be a selfie."

There was something in this woman that Fred did not understand. He was used to that. But what he didn't know was that Daphne didn't understand it, either. That was new.

Velma immediately regretted the decision. The woman closed to within inches of her face and Velma could feel the prickle of goosebumps on that side of her face and neck. She braced, waiting for the logical touch of the woman's hand on her shoulder or around her waist or of their shoulders pressing against each other. Any close personal physical contact with a stranger that she did not want. But the contact never came. The woman maintained a one-inch separation between their shoulders and her hand was clenched in a fist and held down in front of her own stomach.

"Thank you." The woman said.

The timing for that was off. The thank you usually came after the selfie was snapped and before the hug. The awful, awful hug. The shot had still not been snapped and they both looked at the phone that the woman held out at arm's length.

"For what?"

"For everything."

The phone made the artificial shutter sound that indicated the photo had been taken and the young woman immediately took half a step away, "Thank you." But there was no hug as she walked over and stood again next to her husband. He did not reach out and make contact with her and she did not lean against him. Velma saw the same one inch of separation that she had noticed with her.

The woman smiled, "Thank you all. I'm sorry if I bothered you."

Small talk, Daphne was back in her zone, "It's never a bother to spend a few moments with fans. Now, you make sure and raise this beautiful little girl to be an honorary member of the Scooby Gang."

"Mystery Incorporated." Fred muttered under his breath. No one heard.

They watched the family walk away toward another gate down the concourse. Daphne turned back to Velma, "A selfie? Who are you and what have you done with Velma?"

Velma ignored the question and returned to playing the game on her phone. Due to their relative heights, it was easy for Shaggy to see the game, "You know, nobody plays that game anymore."

"I do." Velma said.

They returned to the silent standing around for a few moments as the Zones were called until they finally heard Zone 7 and all Zones. Please board now. Shaggy picked up his backpack knowing that the overhead would be full and he would have to cram it under the seat in front of him which meant there would be no place for him to put his feet. At least, since the majority of the contents of the pack was food, he should have plenty of room by the time they landed.

They passed through first class and Scooby was embroiled in an animated discussion with his seatmate. Scooby didn't look up and Shaggy caught one word as he passed by. "Remocrats." If Scooby was going into one of his political tirades, Shaggy was glad to be way back in Economy. Shaggy's ticket said 'Window' which meant that his knees would ache for a day or two recovering from being squeezed against Fred's seatback. But that was the life of a taller human being. Shaggy let Velma go in front of him down the aisle. She always got angry when he led since she couldn't see anything but his back. So, she got to their seats first. There was room in the overhead for one backpack and she had the aisle seat. Without saying a word, she bypassed the overhead and moved to the window seat where she began sticking her pack under the seat in front of her. Shaggy squeezed his backpack above and sat in the aisle seat. When people were no longer filling the aisle, he would be able to stretch out his right leg and at least keep one leg in running shape in the event this case involved a lot of running.

He turned to Velma who was changing her phone to airplane mode, "Thank you."

She didn't look up, "You're tall. I'm short. It was logical."

Velma somehow managed to be emotionlessly logical and caring at the same time.

"I wonder if they serve snacks on this flight."

She still did not look up. "Not anymore. You have to pay fifty extra dollars now for an extra inch of space, a bag of peanuts, and a soft drink."

"Well in that case…" He began reaching up for the backpack.

"Please wait until the plane has taken off and you can put your tray down. I don't want to sit through another fight between you and a flight attendant."

That was an embarrassing memory. Shaggy brought his hand down and laid it in his lap. They now sat in silence with Velma concentrating on her game. The animals in the game flung themselves at each in an effort to hurt the opposing faction. In this digital war, they managed to be warrior, weapon, and ammunition depending upon need. Each one at any time being able to hurt the opposition through a number of means. Shaggy watched over Velma's shoulder as her thumbs flew around the screen and the two warring factions decimated their own ranks by hurling their own members over their counterpart's crenelated bastion in order to inflict as much destruction as possible.

The silence between him and Velma was exacerbated in his mind by the soft conversation going on between Fred and Daphne in the seats ahead. What he overheard was nothing exciting. They were talking about projects around their house which could be moved up with the influx of $30,000. They were discussing seed versus sod for the front lawn and replacing the original single pane windows for energy efficiency. Fred made some bad joke about Daphne's bird feeders and Daphne laughed. Shaggy had been caught in the middle of some of their fights and they were loud and memorable. But he always forgot these moments when he caught them in the process of sharing the importance of the unimportant.

Velma was not prone to motion sickness but since one episode in the back of the van on the winding gravel roads in the Smoky Mountains, she had learned to be cautious. As the plane began rolling, she turned her phone face down, laid it in her lap, and looked out the window. As the plane took off, she momentarily got lost in the landscape shrinking away below her. The roads, the houses, and the lives that spread out as far as she could see.

"Velma."

She recognized that tone in Shaggy's voice. He wanted to talk. She continued to look out the window. "Shaggy, we're trapped here for a couple of hours. Please don't take advantage of this to force me into a conversation that I don't want to have."

Shaggy had known Velma for most of his life and, as closed off as she was, he knew her probably as well as anyone. One thing he knew was that when she really wanted to shut him down, she always called him Norville. Her use of his name Shaggy meant that some small part of her wanted to hear what he had to say.

"Okay. Fair enough. No conversation. But I am going to tell you something. I will tell you once and then I will never bother you with it again. It will be over. Okay?"

Silence came from Velma's seat. Silence also came from Fred and Daphne in the seats ahead. They were listening.

"The decision that I made about you was the worst mistake of my life. I have lost something that I regret every day of my life. You are my… Velma." His voice broke slightly on her name.

Her eyes stayed on the horizon off in the distance, "That's very easy to say when Scooby's not in earshot."

"Yeah. It's a complicated situation. Scooby needs me and will always need me. And I need him. He will always be a priority. But I know now that he doesn't have to be the only priority."

"You were always good with words."

"I was?"

"When you weren't stoned."

"That wasn't much of the time back in the day."

"Words. That was your part of the team."

"You're losing me. You were the brains, Fred was the traps and plans, Daphne was other duties as assigned, and me and Scoob were screaming and running."

"No. You were deception. You would deceive the villains long enough for the rest of us to have time to think and do our jobs."

Shaggy thought back, "I guess that makes sense."

"So. I was the thinker. Fred was the builder. Daphne was the fixer. And you were the deceiver. Those were the talents which the Annunakis used Scooby Doo to bring together. That is your talent. You are a deceiver."

Velma's voice was flat and emotionless without being either warm or cold. She was a scientist reciting facts.

Shaggy sat and took in the words. So logical. So filled with the ring of truth. "So. Any words I say are meaningless."

Velma didn't respond. As her silence grew longer, Shaggy knew that there would be no response. He said nothing further. He knew that if he tried, she would address him as Norville. He had said what he meant to say. She now knew what he wanted her to know. And he could never say it again. He had given her his word. The word of a deceiver.

Fred heard Daphne's soft sniff and turned to see the lone tear making its way down her cheek. He offered his hand. She took it and laid her head on his shoulder.

Through the crack between the seats, Shaggy saw Daphne's bright red hair tumble over Fred's shoulder. He looked over at the back of Velma's head covered in her thick, soft hair. He remembered how it felt and how it smelled. She was pressed as tightly against the outer bulkhead as she could be. It couldn't be comfortable. Her shoulders were again tensing up in the fight-or-flight response of the introvert and he knew that she needed some time alone now to recover from their discussion. He owed her that.

Getting up, he walked all of the way to the back of the plane and then turned around and walked again to the front. As he passed, he saw that Velma's position had changed and she seemed more comfortable. Her eyes were closed and she might be asleep. Her brows were slightly furrowed in tension but that did not mean she was awake. Velma's anxieties frequently followed her into sleep. Anxieties of which he was one.

He continued walking to the front of the plane and stopped at the class barrier between economy and first class which he was not allowed to cross. Scooby's voice was carrying down several aisles. It was loud and agitated, "…and roo, rir, are a rascist!" Yep. The Scoob was in fine fettle. Shaggy almost felt sorry for whoever drew the short straw and landed in the seat next to him.

He went back and Velma had fallen asleep. Her head was pressed against the bulkhead and her glasses were pressed against her face in an awkward fashion. They were going to leave a mark. He reached up and gently removed them. Her hand came up briefly and she swatted as if at a fly and then it dropped back into her lap. He let down her tray table and placed the glasses in the center of it.

Pulling out his phone, he opened up a book of recipes which he had been reading. The recipes reminded him of food. The food reminded him that he had not eaten in almost an hour. That reminded him that there was a backpack full of food just above his head. And that gave him something to do for the rest of the flight.

Daphne was also asleep on Fred's shoulder. Fred had his tablet open on the tray and was working on a trap. The trap was to catch Clive Matthews. Maybe planning a trap to capture their client wasn't a normal part of a mystery but this was Clive. So, maybe he would make an exception.

Scooby was now sitting alone in first class. After repeatedly being called a fascist, a racist, and a neo-nazi by a Great Dane, his seatmate had requested a seat in economy or in the bathroom or out on the wing. Anywhere but next to this argumentative left-wing socialist canine. After his former seatmate was escorted away to his new seat, Scooby gathered up the unopened snacks left behind and the unopened soft drink, and sniggered to himself. He then turned sideways across all of the extra room and fell asleep.

Two dings and an announcement to put up their tray tables up came over the sound system as they approached LAX. Shaggy jostled Velma slightly to wake her.

Velma's voice was groggy as she reached up to her face, "Glasses… Glasses!... I can't see anything without my glasses." She was clawing at the seat around her as panic was setting in. He grabbed her hands and led them to where the glasses lay on the tray. When he felt the tension ease from her arms, he let go and pulled away. She took the glasses in both hands and put them on.

"Sorry."

"No problem. Nothing I haven't seen before."

"Guess not."

Fred had come up with three different Clive traps. The problem is that all three seemed to end in a beheading. He really didn't like the guy. Maybe he could save the traps for… he thought for a moment and couldn't come up with a situation where a beheading would be an appropriate finale. Maybe he had just killed a couple of hours on a flight.

Daphne raised her head and blinked, "Are we there, yet?" She reached over and touched the small puddle of saliva she had left on her husband's shoulder. She brushed at it as if that would make it go away. He reached up, took her hand, kissed it and gave it back to her. The spit spot would dry.

Scooby woke to a bunch of annoyed fellow passengers. It seems that he snored.

They debarked, walked through the airport, and found an older man waiting for them in baggage claim holding a sign that said "Mystery Inc." A group off on-lookers had gathered wondering if it was some sort of publicity stunt and had started a small round of applause when Scooby had been spotted approaching. He stood, took a bow, and then kissed some women's outstretched hands. Scooby was back in LA.

The older man stepped forward, "Are you people Mystery, Inc.?"

Velma's voice popped up from behind Fred, "What gave it away?"

Daphne stepped forward, "Hi! And your name is…?"

"I'm Herbert. I'm your driver."

"Hello Herbert, it's great to meet you. I'm Daphne. This is Fred, my husband. This is Velma. That is Shaggy. And that, of course, is Scooby Doo. It's a pleasure to meet you."

Herbert stared at her for a second before responding, "It's a pleasure to meet you, too."

Daphne put it in high gear, "Herbert we are all going to be the best of friends. We are going to find out all about you and you are going to find out all about us and…"

Velma pushed her way past Fred, "Hit the brakes a little, Daphne."

Daphne's smile froze ands she turned to Velma.

Velma continued, "No one's filming. We don't have to be everyone's best friend. We are here to do a job." She turned to Herbert, "Hi Herbert, I'm Velma."

"Hi."

"Do you want to be all of our best friend and swap recipes and have sleepovers and do what best buddies do?"

Herbert's eyes darted down Velma's body and then back up.

"Forget I said sleepover. Do you want to be our best buddies? Look at Fred and Shaggy when you think about this."

"Not really."

"What do you want to do?"

"I want to do my job and be left alone."

Velma turned back to Daphne, "We don't need footage and he's probably not the villain. If it turns out that he is the villain, we won't have to talk to the DA about cutting him a deal to get him to film some scenes to flesh out the show. Because there is no show and there are no scenes."

Daphne nodded, "Got it. Okay, Herbert, what's the plan?"

"You go to baggage claim C-3 to pick up your bags and then go to pick-up area C-3 outside – you have to cross over to the island – and I'll bring the bus around and pick you up there."

"We'll do that."

They watched Herbert go and Daphne turned to Velma, "Are you going to be unpleasant this entire trip? Wait. I forgot. Yes, you are." She then stormed off toward the baggage claim.

Fred followed immediately behind Daphne and then Scooby looked back and forth between Velma and Daphne and started off slowly with several looks back. That left Shaggy and Velma standing alone.

Velma didn't move, "You go ahead, I'll be along in a minute."

"No, you won't. You'll turn around and rent a car and drive back to Crystal Cove leaving your luggage here."

She stared up at Shaggy. He stared back down at her.

She threw her backpack over her shoulder, "C'mon."

They joined the group at the baggage claim and then waited fifteen more minutes for their bags to show up. None were lost and they wheeled them out to the bus. Velma had one small bag. Fred had one small bag. Daphne had two large bags. And Shaggy and Scooby had two huge bags each with all four of them weighing in at 49.9 pounds. No one asked what was in the bags. Everyone knew.

The bus was a 20-seat sightseeing model which gave them plenty of room to spread out. Say what you will about Clive, he understood logistics. Herbert made no offer to assist anyone with their luggage and Shaggy and Scooby's monster bags were wrestled in through the back door. Herbert handed Daphne a large envelope, "Your badges are in here."

The badges included the last pictures from when they worked for CBS. Velma wondered if they would even let her in. Fred and Daphne shared a seat. Everyone else spread out. Daphne called out, "Herbert, would you mind taking us to the hotel first? I think that we'd like to freshen up."

Herbert's voice came back as the door closed lessening the exterior noise, "Sorry. My orders are to take you straight to CBS."

"Okay. I guess that's where we're going then."

The sites along the route from LAX to CBS had not changed much since the years when they had made this trip several times a year and so there was little finger pointing or discussion of the sights. Shaggy and Scooby noted some new restaurants and they both got quiet when they passed the still-empty shell of their former Los Angeles location.

When they arrived at the CBS Building, it was a little after 7:00 PM. The pictures on the badges didn't matter. No one looked at them as everything was automatic. They each held up their badge to a card reader and a light turned from red to green and then the gate opened and they were let in. From old habit, Velma memorized the position of the guard station and the CCTV cameras in the lobby. She noted the different entrances and looked for which had keypads and which had card readers and which had both. The cameras were all dome type which meant that the guards at the control station could control which way they pointed. The box which held the card reader had a tell-tale pair of bolt heads sticking out the side which indicated that a mechanical tamper switch had been placed inside. That meant a complete professionally designed system although they had made that installation mistake which meant there would be others. She counted the seconds for the Access Control System to open the gate after she saw the green light. It was 1.5. That gave her a clue as to what type of system it might be. She wondered if back-up power was from localized batteries or a centralized UPS.

She had walked through that lobby a hundred times but never with her senses on mystery mode. From the ten seconds that she spent walking through and waiting for the access gate, she could now draw a detailed map which fully outlined the security system's strengths and weaknesses. She hated to admit it but this beat the heck out of selling books.

The badge was required again to get on the elevator and then a third time to select a floor. Fred pushed 14. They got out at the 14th floor and turned left to a glass window wall which read simply, "CBS." They could see the reception desk inside where the receptionist used to sit that would let them in, but it was unmanned. Most of the floor was dark. There was a card reader on the wall, Daphne tried her badge. Green light. And they were in. They stood next to the desk for a moment. Everything was silent. They considered going on in to Clive's office when someone turned a corner with their arms full of papers and came walking down the corridor between the offices and cubicles. She was a smartly-dressed woman wearing a professional business suit oddly accessorized with tennis shoes. She looked up from her papers about halfway down and seemed to notice them for the first time. She continued the rest of the way to the lobby.

"Can I help you."

Daphne took it, "Yes, we're looking for Clive Matthews?"

"Well, it's after business hours. Is he expecting you? Wait." She noticed Scooby for the first time. "Of course, excuse me. His office moved to the 16th floor about a year ago."

Daphne turned her smile up full, "Thank you very much."

They turned and left the lobby. Scooby was the last to go. Just before he left, the woman looked at him, "Hello?"

Scooby looked back, "Rerro."

She smiled, "I never really believed it."

"Re reither." It was an old joke. But it was still good for a laugh. He turned and joined his friends waiting for the elevator.

Daphne was holding session, "Clive would assume we would go to the office we knew so it would be logical for him to tell us about the change. Why withhold it? Was it just a power play to show us that he had been promoted?" The CBS Building was old school – the higher the floor the higher the status.

Fred answered, "Yeah, probably some stupid thing like that."

Velma stayed silent. The psychological people stuff was Daphne's wheelhouse. Not hers. She would wait until she had some mental framework on which to attach the information.

The elevator came and took them the final two floors to the 16th floor and they found Clive waiting for them in the elevator lobby, "Joan from 14 just called and told me that you were going to my old office. I don't know why I didn't… my brain is a little scrambled right now. Sorry."

Daphne's mind went into overdrive. In the last two days she had heard from this man a 'please', a 'thank you', and now a 'sorry'. Plus, he was waiting for them in the elevator lobby. This did not match a power play and it did not match the man she knew. The other thing that did not match the man she knew was his appearance. She remembered his being about fifteen years their senior and a little overweight. He was now obese. Not quite Sidney Greenstreet obese. But very large. Large enough that he had to shift his weight rather than use his leg muscles in order to walk which made his stride ungainly.

He took only two steps before stopping and turning back to them. He looked nervously at one of the cameras watching the lobby, "We received your NDAs and I assume that you have received mine. I take it since you are here that the money made it to your accounts. But now I want your words – your personal words – that everything you see here tonight will remain secret. It will not get out."

They nodded.

"Follow me."

They followed his laborious gait out of the elevator lobby and into the business lobby and then past the empty reception desk to a large conference room directly behind it. It was a simple rectangle with one wall being windows with a view of the LA skyline. They had been in several just like it through the years although the paint, carpet, and furniture had been updated.

There was a large table which filled the room and seated at the table were four people.

The first was an older woman who Velma had never met but recognized from her younger picture on several articles through the years: Dr. Margaret Sampson, Physicist.

The second was a middle-aged woman who none of the gang knew.

The third was a Catholic priest also middle-aged.

And the fourth was a boy of about 14. He sat quietly at the table and, although no one was looking directly at him, it was clear that he was the center of attention.

Clive seemed uneasy, "Introductions. This is Margaret Sampson, she is a Physicist. Next is Tabatha Strickland, she is a child psychiatrist, then Father Benjamin Taylor, with the Roman Catholic Church, and finally, Robin. Robin Matthews. My son."

The gang processed for a moment and then Daphne spoke, "A psychiatrist, a priest, and a teen-aged boy means that someone is worried about demon possession which means this will be a very short interview and then we will be on our way. But a physicist?" She turned and looked back over her shoulder at Velma.

Velma shrugged.

Daphne continued, "I guess we need more information."

The television show had never included this part. In the show, the first person they met always ended up being the villain, but in reality, they usually started with several suspects. The process where they used psychological clues to narrow down the suspect pool had always been led by Daphne. Then they edited it to make it seem that they had met the suspect right off so they could squeeze everything into the 19 minute timeframe. During season two when they had full hour episodes, the gang wanted to include this part of the process but Daphne refused. She needed to operate under the radar. Her reputation as the empty-headed member of the gang actually helped her to do her job better.

They took seats around the table. The arrangement ended up with the physicist, the psychiatrist, and the priest at one end of the table, the gang at the other end of the table, and the young boy in the center. Clive remained standing directly behind his son.

"Can I get anybody anything? Water? Soda?" They had never seen Clive nervous before. He was sweating. Everyone shook their heads.

Clive stepped around in front of his son, "Robby, you want anything?"

The boy smiled, "No. Thank you, Dad."

Daphne was struck by the exchange between the father and son. It was off somehow. Her mind began to go in dark directions and she cut it off. Open mind. Build the case don't create it.

"Well," she spoke to the room at large, "who gets the job of telling us why we're here?"

A brief silence punctured by the physicist, "You might get your best start by talking directly with Young Robin."

No one disagreed with this statement and the room returned to silence. This was going to be like pulling teeth. She glanced at Velma and decided to take a page from Velma's playbook. She looked over at the boy.

"Okay. Young Robin. Do you like being called Young Robin?"

The boy smiled and again something was off, "It hasn't come up in awhile but I prefer Rob."

"I had a funny feeling it would be Rob."

Most teen-age boys will try and say something funny at this point to try and impress the pretty girl. This one remained silent.

The next question was a standard ice-breaker but something in Daphne's sub-conscious was picking up clues and trying to process them. It was a feeling she had had in the past. It was like an intuition that what was normally a throw-away question was important and she had to pay attention.

"How old are you, Rob?"

No one spoke but she could feel the tension in the room ratchet up. It was a very loud silence.

"I'm 14."

"And that's really important for some reason, isn't it?"

That strange smile again, "It is to me."

"Why are we here, Rob?"

The tension ratcheted up another notch.

"Because, I'm insane."

Daphne waited. This was the point at which the psychiatrist or Clive interjected a disclaimer or an explanation or a clarification. But no one spoke. The experts in the room all let that statement stand. The boy's father let that statement stand. Daphne looked up at Clive and saw his lower lip wedged between his teeth, a tiny speckle of blood visible under his right incisor. The trails of the tears silently streaming down his face were clearly evident. He looked up and their eyes met. She remembered the one word from the previous night's call. "Please." That word was there again. Emblazoned across Clive's face.

Daphne returned her focus to the boy. His facial expression was not belligerent but seemed to carry a toned-down version of his father's 'Please.'

"That's a pretty heavy statement for a 14-year-old." She didn't know where this was headed but she knew to stay on the age thing.

"Ay, there's the rub."

"Not many 14-year-olds quote Hamlet conversationally. Do they?"

"I don't know. It's been a while since I've been one."

"I think its time that we quit the cat-and-mouse and you tell me why we're here."

Rob took a deep breath and looked around the room. No one met his eye.

"The only reasonable explanation as far as I can tell is that I am a 14-year-old boy who is suffering from severe delusions. These delusions came upon me very suddenly about two weeks ago. I was able to hide them at first."

"Wait." Daphne raised her hand, "You were able to hide them? Severe delusions?" She could see the psychiatrist nodding from the corner of her eye.

"Yes. Because they're not delusions in that I'm seeing a pink elephant, or a monster, or… I don't know… or a talking dog." He looked to Scooby, "No offense."

"Rone raken."

"These delusions take the form of memories. Detailed. Very real. Memories." He looked up and stared directly into Daphne's eyes needing… needing her to believe him? No. Needing her to not believe him. Needing her to confirm his self-diagnosis to turn this into something simple. Something curable. Something that would go away. He finished his thought, "46 years of memories."

If they expected a reaction from Daphne, she gave them none, "So, your 60."

"No!" Rob's voice had been completely calm until that point. He settled it back down, "I am 14. And I have 46 years of fraudulent delusional memories in my head." He looked over at the psychiatrist.

Daphne tried again, "No one has really answered my question. Why are we here?"

Clive answered, "Because I believe him."

That's the piece Velma needed, "Which explains why Dr. Sampson is here. You wanted someone to be able to prove that time could be manipulated in such a way…" Velma stopped as more pieces fell into place in her head. "And that explains why we're here." She looked up at Clive, "It's because you don't understand physics."

Dr Sampson nodded, "Exactly."

Fred felt good. This was right. It was the way everything was supposed to be. Daphne's talents feeding into Velma's talents and then working together as a team. He got so lost in his joy at what he was seeing that he almost forgot that he had a role to play.

"Velma, explain what you're talking about." Not much of a role but it was his job so he would do it to the best of his ability.

"Most people watch television and think that physics kind of makes everything possible. Our show used to do it. When we needed to explain in one minute what actually took us 30 hours to figure out, we just yelled 'It's Physics' and went on our merry way. But Physics is the mathematical definition of the boundaries to what is possible. People spend their entire lifetimes trying to move that boundary the width of an eyelash and they rarely succeed. Einstein kicked it down the road but now the others who have followed are back to tweaking and poking and seeing if maybe it will move just a little.

"The last significant break-through that we had was Scooby Doo proving that n-dimensional realities were not only real and demonstrable but that they interacted and that one dimension could be manipulated from a higher dimension. A layman seeing this manipulation at the dimensional level might get confused with the people who have said that time is the 4th dimension. Its not. Dimensions relate to each other separate from time through a relatively simply linear algebra relationship. They all move through time at the same rate. So, time passes for the Annunaki at the same rate that it passes for us. And the time between Nibiru periods is the same in both dimensions.

"In order to tie time and space together, you have to dive deeply into quantum physics which postulates that there are vantage points on the time-space continuum from which you can see not only multiple locations at once but multiple times at once and therefore you could perceive multiple times as if they were all occurring right now even if they were thousands of years apart. But this is all relative to the vantage point. The idea of making a single brain co-exist simultaneously at two separate points along the timeline so that the memories of the brain at both points could be comingled…" Velma stopped again. She wasn't actually doing math in her head since the math – even for her – would take weeks. But she was reviewing her memory of the different papers and theories to see if she could come up with anyone who had a valid counter-argument to what she was about to say. She found none and continued, "To try and bring together two separate points along the timeline in this way would require an infinite amount of energy and is therefore, by definition, not possible. Even for the Annunaki

"So, the only logical conclusion based on the facts that we have is that your son is indeed suffering from a severe psychosis and needs psychiatric treatment."

"Exactly!" said Dr. Sampson again. She looked over at Velma, I am surprised we haven't met, Dr…?"

With that dangling question, Velma suddenly found herself in her own personal hell. She took multiple deep breaths and forced the words out of her mouth, "Ms." Another deep breath, "Ms. Dinkley." One more, "Velma Dinkley."

Her name obviously meant nothing to the physicist which was no surprise unless the older woman was a fan of old mystery shows with talking dogs.

"Oh, of course, my apologies. Where are you studying?"

This was never going to end. "Nowhere."

The physicist was now confused, but there's only a handful of people I know who could have explained what you just explained. And so succinctly. What do you do?"

"I work in a book store."

"A book store?"

"We sell very good books."

Daphne knew the conversation was hurting her friend so she stepped in, "Clive. This looks pretty open and shut…"

Clive tried to remain calm but agitation crept into his voice, "I believe him. You haven't talked to him. Since he came to me and told me what has happened, we have talked endlessly. His memories are real."

Fred asked, "How can you know that?"

"I can't but I know it. Those memories are real and they were either put there by something like Velma is describing or by something else." He looked now at the priest.

The gaze of everyone in the room followed Clive's gaze to the priest who spoke for the first time, "Mr. Matthews, the Church would prefer that you seek medical treatment for your child. Even if we thought otherwise, our hands are tied. As you know."

That was a cryptic enough statement that Daphne followed up, "Your hands are tied?"

"In the case of a child, both parents must sign off on Church intervention. The young man's mother has made her refusal to be willing to sign off abundantly clear."

Velma had recovered enough from her brief emotional trauma to react to this, "Good girl."

The priest smiled and looked over at Velma, "The Church has mixed feelings about you, as well, Ms. Dinkley. Your discovery of these 4th dimension beings who are manipulating our world from above? Let's just say that knowledge has taken a bite out of our shorts."

"Too bad it stopped there."

Daphne could relax. Normal Velma was back.

Rob spoke, "Ms. Blake?" The room stopped on hearing Rob's voice.

"Yes, Rob?"

"Maybe I can give you a data point."

"Go on."

"Its hard for me to prove or disprove anything because everything that is going on now happened 46 years ago according to my memories. And I don't have a calendar in my head where I know exactly what was happening on any given day. I frequently don't know the year of some of my memories from that period. But there's one from around this time which might help."

"Go on."

"My dad had a service where a keyword search was done on all of his shows and the actors in the shows. I learned how to access it from my computer and I kept alive some of the shows which he deleted. One of them was yours. Now, because I was… am a 14-year-old male, I always paid most attention to your and Ms. Dinkley's articles."

Velma groaned, "Of course you did."

"Admittedly, Ms. Dinkley, I had your t-shirt picture under my mattress."

Velma's head dropped to the table, "Just shoot me."

Clive interjected, "Velma, I swear, I didn't know any of this."

Velma raised her head, "Never mind. Just get on with the data point."

Rob continued, "I have a vivid memory from this summer when my Dad's air conditioning went out."

Clive interjected again, "He told me about that before it happened."

Rob nodded, "It's going to be out for about two weeks waiting for a part. But I also have a memory of an article coming out that time not about Ms. Blake but about her sister. I remember it because she looks just like you but with much shorter hair. It was weird. Her name is Delilah and sometime in the next few days, she is going to be named a senior vice president at your father's company."

That was Fred's cue again. He could see that Daphne was going into processing mode and would be thinking for a few seconds.

Fred leaned forward, "Everything you just said could be easily fabricated with a private detective and a monkey wrench."

Ron shrugged, "It's all I've got."

Fred continued, "So, we keep asking the same question and we keep not getting an answer. Why should we take this case?"

Clive looked nervously over at the psychiatrist and then back to Fred, "Because the medical professionals propose to handle his case by feeding him a series of narcotic anti-psychotic drugs that will burn out his brain." He looked over at Shaggy, "No offense."

"None taken."

Clive continued and the tears again started down his cheeks, "If it were your child, and the course of treatment being proposed was to make him likely chemically-dependent for life and with a radically reduced quality of life, wouldn't you do everything and try everything before signing on for that?"

Velma chimed in, "I wouldn't have exorcism on the list."

The priest responded, "Nor would we."

"I'm in." It was Shaggy.

Another statement that stopped all other conversation. He continued, "Let's give the kid a shot. If he wants to screw his life up, then at least let it be his choice not some medical treatment."

"Rime in." Scooby Doo.

"I'm in." Daphne.

"I'm in." Velma.

Fred nodded, "Okay Clive. We take the case."