holy schnikes this took forever to get up. i need like an alarm clock to remind me to update or something...
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Chapter Two
Meet The Gang
When I woke up the next morning, it took me a few moments to piece together what had happened the night before. The return of my memory was facilitated by the sharp pain in my back when I rolled over. My wounds had not miraculously healed overnight (as they are wont to do in the movies) nor were they painless. So I did what anyone would do in this situation; I called my doctor.
"Hello?"
"Hey, sis. What's up?"
"What did you do now?"
"It was legal." There was a snort of disbelief on the other end of the phone. My sister knew what I really did for a living, and I knew that she knew and she knew that I knew that she knew and it was all good so long as our parents didn't find out.
"What is so important that you have to bug me at four in the morning?"
"I thought you were working nights this month?"
"Yeah, working. You know some of us actually have to make an honest living."
"Oh, please miss 'I only get paid 100k a year.' Can't even spare a few moments for your poor sister scraping a living in a foreign land."
"What did you do this time?"
"Just a couple of lacerations on my back. There's only one that looks deep."
"How big?"
"Er… about an inch."
"Don't worry about stitches. Keep an eye out for infection. Take two aspirin and call me at a decent hour." Celeste hung up before I could get in a witty retort. It was so nice to have a doctor in the family.
I went out to the living room, and received my second shock of the day. There was a fictional character sleeping on my couch. Holmes looked like he was still asleep, but I wouldn't count on it. As I well knew, faking unconsciousness is an excellent method of gathering information. I turned on the coffee maker and yawned. Then something caught my eye and I froze.
It was "The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" in two volumes. I had bought it on my return from Baker Street. If he read those books, well, I wasn't sure what would happen, but I was pretty sure it wouldn't be good. I pulled the volumes off the shelf and stuck them in a box. Then I thought again and went back for my old history books from college. Once I had them all packed up I wrestled the box downstairs, now quite sure that Holmes was faking somnolence.
"Hey Mala." I greeted one of the three occupants of the pub. The only sign that she had gone home for the night was her new outfit.
"What's all this?" She replied, looking sideways at the box.
"I have an odd request." I began. "I want you to take these books and stash them at your place for a few days." Mala examined the contents and looked up at me, puzzled.
"Why?"
"You know that guy who crashed on my sofa last night? Well, he's actually a time traveler from the year 1890 and I have to keep the future a secret from him so he doesn't suss it up when he goes back to the days of yore."
Mala chuckled. "You're unique Aurora, I'll give you that. I guess that means I don't really want to know."
"Probably." I grinned in reply. "It's nothing illegal, I promise."
Mala shook her head, but didn't say anything. I headed back upstairs and was rather alarmed when I entered the living room to find it empty. Holmes' proved easy to find though, because three seconds later I heard the sweet sounds of Daniel Beddingfield playing at high volume. Holmes had found my music folder.
My flat wasn't as big as, say, a house, but it was large enough that the computer could warrant its own room. Granted, I had bigger closets, but it was a room. Holmes was fiddling with the speakers. Being the bright boy that he is, he quickly found the volume knob.
"Having fun?"
"I assumed from the keyboard that it was a kind of typewriter. It certainly doesn't look like a gramophone." Holmes replied. "What else does it do?"
"You can play games on it. That's about it."
"These?" Holmes found the pop up menu labeled "Games" and was scanning the titles. I was busy trying to think of something to distract him before he decided to find out what an "Internet Explorer" was.
"What happened to the books on those shelves?" Holmes asked calmly, now pressing buttons on the keyboard at random to see what would happen. There were some rather gaping holes on my bookshelf. Clever, asking as if he'd simply observed the missing books, rather than been awake the whole time.
"If you could go back in time to stop a murder from happening, would you?" Holmes opened his mouth, perhaps to say that was a dumb question, but I cut him off. "The real question is should you? Actions have a ripple effect. Take Caesar, you could go back and save him from the Senate. It might seem like a good idea at the time, but the consequences are so complex that it baffles the mind."
"A carefully calculated alteration could produce results that would change the course of events for the better." Holmes pointed out.
"Or it could screw the world over so completely that there would be no fixing it. We know that this way the world isn't blown to bits. Sometimes you gotta know when to leave well enough alone."
"So you have taken your history books to prevent me from – how did he say it – 'sussing' things up?" Holmes leaned back in the chair to consider this. "An interesting premise; that by knowing future events, one might affect them unintentionally." I decided to take this as a concession.
"So this time machine…" I held up a hand to stop him.
"If you want to know how the damn thing works, ask Alden. As far as I'm concerned it's magic."
Another Spock-like eyebrow. "Really?"
"Yep. Magic."
"Fascinating."
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Hanging out with Holmes had always been a rather surreal experience, but this was just a whole new level of weird.
"Here, here and here." I pulled khakis, a few shirts and a sweater from the racks. But for a few superficial differences (namely the designer label) they could have been 19th century clothes. Guys have it so easy when it comes to clothes. I shooed him into the fitting room and went off to drool over the skirts. I'd always had a weakness for girly clothes, but they were often so impractical. No place to hide a lock pick set in spaghetti straps.
"Well?" I glanced up from a cute pair of stilettos that I would never dare walk in. Holmes looked exactly like every other guy I had ever dragged shopping; highly uncomfortable. Hmm, not bad. He looked like a college boy, but that couldn't be helped.
"It'll do."
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Questions, comments, critisicms, complaints? Make your voice heard.
.•´¨`•»¦«•Kerowyn•»¦«•´¨`•.
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Chapter Two
Meet The Gang
When I woke up the next morning, it took me a few moments to piece together what had happened the night before. The return of my memory was facilitated by the sharp pain in my back when I rolled over. My wounds had not miraculously healed overnight (as they are wont to do in the movies) nor were they painless. So I did what anyone would do in this situation; I called my doctor.
"Hello?"
"Hey, sis. What's up?"
"What did you do now?"
"It was legal." There was a snort of disbelief on the other end of the phone. My sister knew what I really did for a living, and I knew that she knew and she knew that I knew that she knew and it was all good so long as our parents didn't find out.
"What is so important that you have to bug me at four in the morning?"
"I thought you were working nights this month?"
"Yeah, working. You know some of us actually have to make an honest living."
"Oh, please miss 'I only get paid 100k a year.' Can't even spare a few moments for your poor sister scraping a living in a foreign land."
"What did you do this time?"
"Just a couple of lacerations on my back. There's only one that looks deep."
"How big?"
"Er… about an inch."
"Don't worry about stitches. Keep an eye out for infection. Take two aspirin and call me at a decent hour." Celeste hung up before I could get in a witty retort. It was so nice to have a doctor in the family.
I went out to the living room, and received my second shock of the day. There was a fictional character sleeping on my couch. Holmes looked like he was still asleep, but I wouldn't count on it. As I well knew, faking unconsciousness is an excellent method of gathering information. I turned on the coffee maker and yawned. Then something caught my eye and I froze.
It was "The Complete Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" in two volumes. I had bought it on my return from Baker Street. If he read those books, well, I wasn't sure what would happen, but I was pretty sure it wouldn't be good. I pulled the volumes off the shelf and stuck them in a box. Then I thought again and went back for my old history books from college. Once I had them all packed up I wrestled the box downstairs, now quite sure that Holmes was faking somnolence.
"Hey Mala." I greeted one of the three occupants of the pub. The only sign that she had gone home for the night was her new outfit.
"What's all this?" She replied, looking sideways at the box.
"I have an odd request." I began. "I want you to take these books and stash them at your place for a few days." Mala examined the contents and looked up at me, puzzled.
"Why?"
"You know that guy who crashed on my sofa last night? Well, he's actually a time traveler from the year 1890 and I have to keep the future a secret from him so he doesn't suss it up when he goes back to the days of yore."
Mala chuckled. "You're unique Aurora, I'll give you that. I guess that means I don't really want to know."
"Probably." I grinned in reply. "It's nothing illegal, I promise."
Mala shook her head, but didn't say anything. I headed back upstairs and was rather alarmed when I entered the living room to find it empty. Holmes' proved easy to find though, because three seconds later I heard the sweet sounds of Daniel Beddingfield playing at high volume. Holmes had found my music folder.
My flat wasn't as big as, say, a house, but it was large enough that the computer could warrant its own room. Granted, I had bigger closets, but it was a room. Holmes was fiddling with the speakers. Being the bright boy that he is, he quickly found the volume knob.
"Having fun?"
"I assumed from the keyboard that it was a kind of typewriter. It certainly doesn't look like a gramophone." Holmes replied. "What else does it do?"
"You can play games on it. That's about it."
"These?" Holmes found the pop up menu labeled "Games" and was scanning the titles. I was busy trying to think of something to distract him before he decided to find out what an "Internet Explorer" was.
"What happened to the books on those shelves?" Holmes asked calmly, now pressing buttons on the keyboard at random to see what would happen. There were some rather gaping holes on my bookshelf. Clever, asking as if he'd simply observed the missing books, rather than been awake the whole time.
"If you could go back in time to stop a murder from happening, would you?" Holmes opened his mouth, perhaps to say that was a dumb question, but I cut him off. "The real question is should you? Actions have a ripple effect. Take Caesar, you could go back and save him from the Senate. It might seem like a good idea at the time, but the consequences are so complex that it baffles the mind."
"A carefully calculated alteration could produce results that would change the course of events for the better." Holmes pointed out.
"Or it could screw the world over so completely that there would be no fixing it. We know that this way the world isn't blown to bits. Sometimes you gotta know when to leave well enough alone."
"So you have taken your history books to prevent me from – how did he say it – 'sussing' things up?" Holmes leaned back in the chair to consider this. "An interesting premise; that by knowing future events, one might affect them unintentionally." I decided to take this as a concession.
"So this time machine…" I held up a hand to stop him.
"If you want to know how the damn thing works, ask Alden. As far as I'm concerned it's magic."
Another Spock-like eyebrow. "Really?"
"Yep. Magic."
"Fascinating."
~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Hanging out with Holmes had always been a rather surreal experience, but this was just a whole new level of weird.
"Here, here and here." I pulled khakis, a few shirts and a sweater from the racks. But for a few superficial differences (namely the designer label) they could have been 19th century clothes. Guys have it so easy when it comes to clothes. I shooed him into the fitting room and went off to drool over the skirts. I'd always had a weakness for girly clothes, but they were often so impractical. No place to hide a lock pick set in spaghetti straps.
"Well?" I glanced up from a cute pair of stilettos that I would never dare walk in. Holmes looked exactly like every other guy I had ever dragged shopping; highly uncomfortable. Hmm, not bad. He looked like a college boy, but that couldn't be helped.
"It'll do."
~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~ ~*~
Questions, comments, critisicms, complaints? Make your voice heard.
.•´¨`•»¦«•Kerowyn•»¦«•´¨`•.