October 26, 2005

This story began, in more ways than one, with a clock hanging on a wall. It was blue-rimmed, and normal-looking (if rather large), and displayed a time of 7:53. But, if there that morning, you would have seen many other clocks, covering the walls, the shelves, the counter space.

And they wouldn't have been the only things you might have noticed. A case, for example, displaying a few newspaper clippings, hanging on the wall. The clippings told stories about a mansion being destroyed, and about its estate being sold to developers. The second headline mentioned a "Bankrupt Inventor". The pictures below the case—of Edison, Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, and a man with a long nose and chin and a strange purple suit—might have made you wonder if you were in that selfsame inventor's house.

As the clocks struck 7:54, various things were automatically set in motion. A coffee machine pouring hot water into a pot—a pot that was not there—so the water spilled into the base and steamed. A ticking clock hand flipping the TV switch, revealing a newscaster with a report about some stolen plutonium and "Libyans". A toaster popping out some obsidian-black toast. A robotic arm transporting a can of dog-food to a can-opener, then dumping the gruel into a bowl, filled already with a mound of the stuff. The can soon joined its fellows in a trash bin.

As the can dropped, the door opened to the somewhat gruff sound of a young man's voice…

"Hey, Doc?"

The man dropped a key underneath the welcome-mat outside the door, then walked inside. "Doc? Hello, anybody home?" He wandered around, carrying a shabby skateboard with him. "What's going on, is—" Then he noticed the disgusting pile of dog food. "Ohh, man, that is gross. Boy, Cavendish, sometimes I just don't know." He set down his skateboard on the floor, then wondered quietly "Where is he?" The skateboard rolled away from him. It came to a stop under the bed, knocking against a yellow container with a radioactive symbol, and the words "UNKNOWN ELEMENT" and "HANDLE WITH CARE".

Eventually, the man found something he liked. His hands wandered over the machine as he flipped switches and turned dials. He plugged a cord into a guitar. He turned a last dial up to "Danger" and flipped a few more switches before standing back in front of the gigantic amplifier. He raised his pick dramatically. "WE'RE—" He brought it down on the strings.

Instantly, the amp exploded in sound and sparks, sending him flying backwards into a bookshelf. The impact caused the shelf to fall forward on top of him. Its contents (luckily, mostly papers and light books) showered onto him. As the sound explosion died away, the man stirred and groaned. With some effort, he managed to urge his curly-haired head out from under the pile. He adjusted his gold-tinted glasses back over his eyes and looked at the damage. "Whoa."

The amp now had a gaping, sparking hole in it, falling debris and all. Even as he watched, a large chunk detached itself from the top and fell off. The man raised his eyebrows. "That's what I call going to the zoo."

Suddenly, he heard a ringing noise. At first, he patted his ear, but then he realized the noise wasn't just there. The phone was ringing, somewhere in all this mess. He got up and waded through to find it (no easy task with the buzzing in his head, even if it was slowly fading). But he eventually tripped over it and raised the receiver to his ear. "Hello?"

A British whisper trickled through the speaker. "Dakota? Is that you?"

"Doc? Uh, yeah, yeah, it's me! Where are you?"

"I'm—that's not important right now. Do—"

"Hey, did you get a dog? Cause you got a mound of dog food sitting on your kitchen floor."

"Sort of. Well, I mean, I have a dog, but it's not exactly my—oh, never mind. Now listen, I've got something I need you to do for me."

"Sure thing. What is it?"

"I need you to come to the parking lot of the Googleplex Mall at exactly 1:15 tonight."

"Yeah, wait, 1:15 in the morning?"

"Precisely."

"Why 1:15 in the morning?"

"You'll see. Oh, and one other thing: don't try to use the amplifier. It's still got a few, er, bugs, and it could very well overload."

Dakota grimaced, then looked over his shoulder at the wreckage caused by said overload. He let slip an uncomfortable "Yeah…"

Although he couldn't see Cavendish at the time, Dakota got the distinct impression that his hand was on his hip, and he was scowling. "Dakota, don't tell me you—"

Suddenly, every clock in the house went off at the same time. Dakota jumped, then covered his head with his arms, trying to block out the second earsplitter of the day.

The phone was still up against his ear when it happened. Now, he heard Cavendish's voice, though he wasn't quite sure what it said. "WHAT?"

"I say, are those my clocks I hear?"

"Y-YEAH! WHY?"

The other voice laughed sharply, which Dakota didn't appreciate. "My experiment worked! Every single one of those clocks is precisely twenty-five minutes slow!"

Once he could bear even the dying noise, Dakota put a hand on his hip and frowned. "Well, what kind of experiment is that supposed to be? Twenty-five minutes…" Realization set in at that moment, and his eyes widened. "Wait, twenty-five minutes slow? What time is it?"

"Precisely 8:25 and twenty-nine seconds."

"Oh no." Dakota sprang to his feet. "I'm late for work!" He practically dropped the phone into its receiver before dashing out the door.

Authour's Note: sorry if this first chapter is a bit slow. A lot of it was visual in the movie, so that's a lot of narrative description. Character stuff happens more in the rest of the chapters, I promise!