Chapter the First
Welcome to the Future
Shattered glass. Hard floors and electric buzzing. Ouch. That hurt. Sensations resolved themselves into coherent form. I lay still, waiting for my brain to complete a systems check. Data coming in from all stations. Nothing was broken, though my nose was smushed against the floor at a rather awkward angle. Satisfied that everything was working correctly, I rolled over onto my back, and immediately wished I hadn't.
It felt like a million paper cuts all at once. Shards of glass from the broken window had left several superficial cuts on my back. It wasn't much of an injury, but it had utterly ruined my Victorian-style dress. I yelped, more in shock than pain and jumped to my feet. This attracted the attention of the other occupant of the round white room.
"You don't happen to have a key do you?" Holmes asked.
The shock of seeing him there sent my still skittish nerves flying in all directions. The mechanical whine changed pitch. That didn't sound good at all. It sounded rather like my computer, right before the appearance of the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. Sparks began to fly from the arcane electrical equipment overhead. The florescent lights flickered fitfully while I scrambled off the steel and chrome platform.
Holmes decided to take the initiative and kick down the door. It gave way instantly. The room beyond was less white, but far more cluttered with esoteric electric devices. The wizard who normally presided over these machines currently had his head buried in circuitry. Only after he banished the sparks and the small electrical fire did he acknowledge our existence.
"This is all your fault!" He cried. "The machine was calibrated for one. One! Not two, one!"
"I wasn't trying to break it!" I snapped back.
"Weeks! This will take weeks to fix." Alden buried his head in another circuit panel. He was still yelling at me for breaking his precious equipment, but the words were now muffled. I turned to Holmes, who was taking this rather drastic shift in location with remarkable aplomb.
"Um…" Marvel before my eloquence. Holmes was taking this remarkably well. I would probably be freaking right on out if I got pulled a hundred years into the future, what with the flying cars and the robots and everything.
"This is the twenty first century?" He said. I nodded. "It's very…" He was interrupted by a circuit board flying across the room. "…cluttered." I thought that statement was a bit rich, coming from the bachelor extraordinaire.
"It will take at least a week for me to order all the parts that I need!" Alden finished, waving another fried circuit board at me.
"If you would just get the damn thing working properly, it wouldn't turn into Microsoft flambé every time you turned it on!" I snapped back. Alden subsided into vague mutterings. "Now, how long will it take for you to fix it?"
"Well," Alden stood back and surveyed his domain. "The chronoton regulator is burnt out, the power core is no longer aligned properly with the neutron intake valves, and the targeting sensors are still smoldering."
"In English?"
"One week, maybe longer. I can't order these parts out of a catalogue you know. Who are you?" Alden finally deigned to notice Holmes.
"Sherlock Holmes." Alden showed no sign of recognizing the name.
"Hmph. Try not to suss anything up while you're here." Alden grumbled and puttered out of the room. Holmes raised an eyebrow at me. I threw up my hands.
"Honestly, that was downright social for Alden. C'mon we need to get you something to wear."
"Pardon?"
"My dear Holmes, that may have been the height of fashion back on Baker Street, but here it'll make you stick out like- like- I dunno, something that sticks out really well."
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Twenty minutes later and we were cruising back to London in my Jeep. One of the primary problems of time travel, is that people will insist on changing their fashions every generation or so. Thus, in order to avoid detection, the time traveler must be wearing a reasonable approximation of recent fashions. Failure to do so may result in your being hauled off to the loony bin.
Holmes looked rather sharp in modern clothes. Of course, it was hard to tell what he thought, because his eyes were locked on the road with an expression of something near terror. My driving has that effect on most people. The automobile was already available in 1888, though you had to be Bill Gates rich to afford one, so he hadn't been surprised by this particular piece of modernity.
"It's only fair to let you crash at my place." I was saying. "You let me in often enough."
"A decision which I am now beginning to regret. Look out."
"Whoops." I slowed down to avoid rear-ending the guy in front of me. Holmes continued determinedly.
"Life would be simpler without you." I chuckled.
"One might say the same about you. Besides, simple is boring." Holmes conceded the point. I frowned. Holmes was being far too genial about this, not at all his usual style. He was up to something.
"I must confess that this- situation has me rather confused."
"No kidding." I was glad Holmes had finally admitted it. For the first time in a long time, he was in way over his head.
"How did this happen?"
"I honestly don't know." I paused to take a roundabout. The Jeep slid into a space in traffic like a hand into a glove. Four heartbeats later and the Jeep was shooting out the other side without dropping below 40 mph.
"I guess because you were holding onto me when the time machine kicked in, you got pulled along for the ride."
"Very nice Aurora, would you please place your hands back on the wheel." I sighed. I should know by now not to talk to people when I was driving; they never listen.
Alden's time lab was located in Oxfordshire, just outside a dot on the map called Stanford in the Vale. It wasn't what you'd call far from London but the trip was made longer by that near sentient entity called London traffic. It consisted of mainly sitting and waiting and fruitless honking by those few morons determined to drive the rest of us insane.
I wondered what was going through Holmes' brain. Most modern technology, cars, radio and so forth, was in its infant stages during Holmes' era. I decided against asking. There was no way that he going to give me a straight answer.
"Where exactly are we going?" Holmes asked, when I was forced to slow down by a large truck.
"You remember that pearl I, uh, acquired?" Stole, actually. From the British Museum. Got away scot-free too. Holmes repressed a smile; he was supposed to be on the other side of the fence after all.
"Yes."
"Well, it was worth quite a bit of money. Enough for me to buy out the owner of a pub near the Thames." The man had been delighted to take the amount I'd offered and head off to a nice retirement in Devon. "There's a lovely flat upstairs." Two actually, I made a killing in rent from the couple upstairs, and I wasn't even charging that much by the standards of London real estate.
Sometimes, I look out at London traffic, and I'm almost home in Manhattan again. The same packed streets, arcane traffic laws and crazy cab drivers. The same dearth of parking. I stowed the Jeep in a parking garage a block from the pub.
Holmes was back in his element. The gritty streets of the great cesspool hadn't changed all that much over the century, but for a few neon signs here and there.
"Interesting name." Holmes commented. I glanced up at the carved wooden sign. It depicted a grinning rogue relieving a man of his wallet, while the words "The Clever Thief" curled around him.
"That's the original name too." Holmes raised an eyebrow. Man, did he ever look like Spock when he did that. "No, really! Why do you think I bought this one?"
The Clever Thief is a pub in the old fashion, with plenty of oak paneling and dim lighting. The bar took up the entire length of the right hand wall. The biggest TV that I could mount hung over one end of the bar, playing nonstop ESPN. A few pool tables and dart boards lived in peaceful coexistence in the back near the kitchen. The pub was currently about half full of men who were out for a beer with the mates and men plotting the next illicit activity.
"Evenin' Aurora." Malaika waved a dish towel at me. I waved back and headed over to the bar. "How was your day off?"
"Pretty good. How are the kids?" Mala had three of them, who were at four, five, and six. Brave woman.
"Good. Maria discovered my makeup, and painted some very pretty pictures on the wall with it."
"Ouch." I remembered Holmes. "Mala, this is Holmes, a friend from college. Holmes this is Malaika. She makes sure this whole operation doesn't fall down around me." The Kenyan woman blushed, but didn't deny the claim. It was accurate after all.
"It is a pleasure." Holmes said graciously, bowing over her hand like an appropriate Victorian gentlemen. He looked like a right git.
"Now where did you dig him up?" Mala laughed softly. "They don't make them like him anymore."
"Nope." I agreed. We headed up the stairs. Like most buildings in this part of town, the upper floors were designed to be apartments. Since I'd bought the entire building, it made more sense to move in rather than try to find another apartment in London's impossible real estate market.
I was now glad I had decided to invest in one of those schnazzy fold out sofa-beds. It really wasn't too late, by either of our standards, but something about time travel really takes the energy out of you. It gives the term 'jet-lag' a whole new meaning.
And so, we went to bed. What a dramatic way to end the chapter.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Questions, comments, critisicms, complaints? Make your voice heard.
.•´¨`•»¦«•Kerowyn•»¦«•´¨`•.
Welcome to the Future
Shattered glass. Hard floors and electric buzzing. Ouch. That hurt. Sensations resolved themselves into coherent form. I lay still, waiting for my brain to complete a systems check. Data coming in from all stations. Nothing was broken, though my nose was smushed against the floor at a rather awkward angle. Satisfied that everything was working correctly, I rolled over onto my back, and immediately wished I hadn't.
It felt like a million paper cuts all at once. Shards of glass from the broken window had left several superficial cuts on my back. It wasn't much of an injury, but it had utterly ruined my Victorian-style dress. I yelped, more in shock than pain and jumped to my feet. This attracted the attention of the other occupant of the round white room.
"You don't happen to have a key do you?" Holmes asked.
The shock of seeing him there sent my still skittish nerves flying in all directions. The mechanical whine changed pitch. That didn't sound good at all. It sounded rather like my computer, right before the appearance of the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. Sparks began to fly from the arcane electrical equipment overhead. The florescent lights flickered fitfully while I scrambled off the steel and chrome platform.
Holmes decided to take the initiative and kick down the door. It gave way instantly. The room beyond was less white, but far more cluttered with esoteric electric devices. The wizard who normally presided over these machines currently had his head buried in circuitry. Only after he banished the sparks and the small electrical fire did he acknowledge our existence.
"This is all your fault!" He cried. "The machine was calibrated for one. One! Not two, one!"
"I wasn't trying to break it!" I snapped back.
"Weeks! This will take weeks to fix." Alden buried his head in another circuit panel. He was still yelling at me for breaking his precious equipment, but the words were now muffled. I turned to Holmes, who was taking this rather drastic shift in location with remarkable aplomb.
"Um…" Marvel before my eloquence. Holmes was taking this remarkably well. I would probably be freaking right on out if I got pulled a hundred years into the future, what with the flying cars and the robots and everything.
"This is the twenty first century?" He said. I nodded. "It's very…" He was interrupted by a circuit board flying across the room. "…cluttered." I thought that statement was a bit rich, coming from the bachelor extraordinaire.
"It will take at least a week for me to order all the parts that I need!" Alden finished, waving another fried circuit board at me.
"If you would just get the damn thing working properly, it wouldn't turn into Microsoft flambé every time you turned it on!" I snapped back. Alden subsided into vague mutterings. "Now, how long will it take for you to fix it?"
"Well," Alden stood back and surveyed his domain. "The chronoton regulator is burnt out, the power core is no longer aligned properly with the neutron intake valves, and the targeting sensors are still smoldering."
"In English?"
"One week, maybe longer. I can't order these parts out of a catalogue you know. Who are you?" Alden finally deigned to notice Holmes.
"Sherlock Holmes." Alden showed no sign of recognizing the name.
"Hmph. Try not to suss anything up while you're here." Alden grumbled and puttered out of the room. Holmes raised an eyebrow at me. I threw up my hands.
"Honestly, that was downright social for Alden. C'mon we need to get you something to wear."
"Pardon?"
"My dear Holmes, that may have been the height of fashion back on Baker Street, but here it'll make you stick out like- like- I dunno, something that sticks out really well."
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Twenty minutes later and we were cruising back to London in my Jeep. One of the primary problems of time travel, is that people will insist on changing their fashions every generation or so. Thus, in order to avoid detection, the time traveler must be wearing a reasonable approximation of recent fashions. Failure to do so may result in your being hauled off to the loony bin.
Holmes looked rather sharp in modern clothes. Of course, it was hard to tell what he thought, because his eyes were locked on the road with an expression of something near terror. My driving has that effect on most people. The automobile was already available in 1888, though you had to be Bill Gates rich to afford one, so he hadn't been surprised by this particular piece of modernity.
"It's only fair to let you crash at my place." I was saying. "You let me in often enough."
"A decision which I am now beginning to regret. Look out."
"Whoops." I slowed down to avoid rear-ending the guy in front of me. Holmes continued determinedly.
"Life would be simpler without you." I chuckled.
"One might say the same about you. Besides, simple is boring." Holmes conceded the point. I frowned. Holmes was being far too genial about this, not at all his usual style. He was up to something.
"I must confess that this- situation has me rather confused."
"No kidding." I was glad Holmes had finally admitted it. For the first time in a long time, he was in way over his head.
"How did this happen?"
"I honestly don't know." I paused to take a roundabout. The Jeep slid into a space in traffic like a hand into a glove. Four heartbeats later and the Jeep was shooting out the other side without dropping below 40 mph.
"I guess because you were holding onto me when the time machine kicked in, you got pulled along for the ride."
"Very nice Aurora, would you please place your hands back on the wheel." I sighed. I should know by now not to talk to people when I was driving; they never listen.
Alden's time lab was located in Oxfordshire, just outside a dot on the map called Stanford in the Vale. It wasn't what you'd call far from London but the trip was made longer by that near sentient entity called London traffic. It consisted of mainly sitting and waiting and fruitless honking by those few morons determined to drive the rest of us insane.
I wondered what was going through Holmes' brain. Most modern technology, cars, radio and so forth, was in its infant stages during Holmes' era. I decided against asking. There was no way that he going to give me a straight answer.
"Where exactly are we going?" Holmes asked, when I was forced to slow down by a large truck.
"You remember that pearl I, uh, acquired?" Stole, actually. From the British Museum. Got away scot-free too. Holmes repressed a smile; he was supposed to be on the other side of the fence after all.
"Yes."
"Well, it was worth quite a bit of money. Enough for me to buy out the owner of a pub near the Thames." The man had been delighted to take the amount I'd offered and head off to a nice retirement in Devon. "There's a lovely flat upstairs." Two actually, I made a killing in rent from the couple upstairs, and I wasn't even charging that much by the standards of London real estate.
Sometimes, I look out at London traffic, and I'm almost home in Manhattan again. The same packed streets, arcane traffic laws and crazy cab drivers. The same dearth of parking. I stowed the Jeep in a parking garage a block from the pub.
Holmes was back in his element. The gritty streets of the great cesspool hadn't changed all that much over the century, but for a few neon signs here and there.
"Interesting name." Holmes commented. I glanced up at the carved wooden sign. It depicted a grinning rogue relieving a man of his wallet, while the words "The Clever Thief" curled around him.
"That's the original name too." Holmes raised an eyebrow. Man, did he ever look like Spock when he did that. "No, really! Why do you think I bought this one?"
The Clever Thief is a pub in the old fashion, with plenty of oak paneling and dim lighting. The bar took up the entire length of the right hand wall. The biggest TV that I could mount hung over one end of the bar, playing nonstop ESPN. A few pool tables and dart boards lived in peaceful coexistence in the back near the kitchen. The pub was currently about half full of men who were out for a beer with the mates and men plotting the next illicit activity.
"Evenin' Aurora." Malaika waved a dish towel at me. I waved back and headed over to the bar. "How was your day off?"
"Pretty good. How are the kids?" Mala had three of them, who were at four, five, and six. Brave woman.
"Good. Maria discovered my makeup, and painted some very pretty pictures on the wall with it."
"Ouch." I remembered Holmes. "Mala, this is Holmes, a friend from college. Holmes this is Malaika. She makes sure this whole operation doesn't fall down around me." The Kenyan woman blushed, but didn't deny the claim. It was accurate after all.
"It is a pleasure." Holmes said graciously, bowing over her hand like an appropriate Victorian gentlemen. He looked like a right git.
"Now where did you dig him up?" Mala laughed softly. "They don't make them like him anymore."
"Nope." I agreed. We headed up the stairs. Like most buildings in this part of town, the upper floors were designed to be apartments. Since I'd bought the entire building, it made more sense to move in rather than try to find another apartment in London's impossible real estate market.
I was now glad I had decided to invest in one of those schnazzy fold out sofa-beds. It really wasn't too late, by either of our standards, but something about time travel really takes the energy out of you. It gives the term 'jet-lag' a whole new meaning.
And so, we went to bed. What a dramatic way to end the chapter.
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Questions, comments, critisicms, complaints? Make your voice heard.
.•´¨`•»¦«•Kerowyn•»¦«•´¨`•.