Episode 11:2- Trapped in Multispace
Utter silence followed that statement.
Calvin reached over and patted Hobbes on the head. "That's nice, Hobbes."
The tiger glared and shook the hand off. "I'm serious!"
"What made you come to that conclusion?" asked Jack, looking genuinely interested. He leant forwards slightly.
"The changes have all been happening in shifts," Hobbes explained. "About how long was it from the anti-gravity starting to it turning off?"
"An hour," the Captain answered.
"It was an hour from when the jungle started to the kitchen warping," Rose added.
"So, the next change will start in an hour?" Calvin asked.
Hobbes nodded.
"And what does this have to do with the Time Machine evolving?" Rose asked.
The tiger considered this for a moment. "Let's just call this... teething problems."
"Nearly getting eaten by killer goldfish is a teething problem?" Calvin exclaimed incredulously.
"Yeah, pretty much."
Jack tapped on the mattress. "Does anyone have the time?"
For some reason, a wall sprouted a clock out of it. The time was 11.35.
Everyone breathed out a collective sigh of relief.
And then the clock hands started swivelling forwards at a demented pace until they reached 12.00. They stopped there precisely.
"Oh, look!" said Rose weakly. "Time's gone wibbly!"
Jack looked like he was on the verge of breaking out into an interesting range of swear words. Fortunately for everyone's sanity, the floor opened up just then. Calvin and Jack both dropped down into an empty black void. Hobbes, having sharp cat reflexes, jumped out of the way and managed to pull Rose back from dropping.
"They're falling!" yelled Rose, scrambling to the edge of the hole.
"It's not falling, it's controlled skydiving!" came Calvin's voice. "Geronimooooo..."
Hobbes shook his head. "Nah, they'll be alright."
Rose sat back against the edge of the room. "It's like the bloody Hunger Games around here."
"May the odds be ever in your favour," Hobbes sighed.
And that was when the monkeys closed in on them.
Calvin landed on a medical trolley, and rolled off painfully, yelping all the while. He hit the ground and stayed there. Jack was slightly more lucky, landing on a cushy bed.
"Ooh, who was the last person in here?" he wondered. The ceiling had closed up.
"The slimy girl," Calvin grunted. "Get off."
Looking around, they noticed that they were in the medical bay. It didn't look like a traditional medical bay, actually. There was lots of futuristic technology scattered around, and Calvin couldn't even pretend to know what half of it did. It was just there when he had built the Time Machine's extra dimension.
"Nice place," Jack poked at a jar of slimy goo, then got distracted by a big slimy worm-like creature. "What's this?"
"Memory Worm," Calvin stepped over and yanked his hand away from the animal. "I wouldn't recommend touching it, unless you want to lose more off your already damaged mind."
"Touche." He paused. "If you can take away memories, is there any way you can give them back."
He thought. "Weeeelll... maybe. Let's look around."
They rummaged through boxes and drawers full of medical equipment, and although there was an interesting pair of needles marked "DO NOT USE, EVER", there was nothing that could be used with memories.
"There's a switch here that says 'Hologram'," called Jack. "And it's on."
They stood there for a moment as the implications of this sunk in.
"We're in a hologram?" asked Calvin.
As a response, Jack flicked the switch. The room flicked off like a light. And they were now standing in a waiting room. A water dispenser with typically tacky plastic cups was in the corner. And there was a door that said 'the Doctor will see you now' on a sheet of notepaper tacked to it.
They looked at each other.
"Should we go in?" Calvin wondered.
"Well, it's either that or listen to this Muzak," Jack pointed at the speakers, which were blasting the annoying music.
Calvin pushed open the door.
"Killer monkeys!" Rose shouted. "I used to like monkeys!"
"You can still like monkeys!" Hobbes yelled back, trying to peel them off his head. "Just from a distance or something!"
"Is the whole animal world trying to conspire against me, or something?" Rose wondered loudly, swatting a pair of furry primate hands away from her shirt.
Hobbes pounced her, and they went down screaming together.
"Apparently, yes," she answered herself.
Hobbes sighed. "Well, a giant monkey was about to pull your head off..."
She glanced up. There was a monkey, about ten times the size of the others, glaring at them.
"Run?" she suggested.
"Run," Hobbes confirmed.
They ran out of the Bed Room, and into a maze. Well, at least Rose assumed it was a maze. There were giant walls that looked a lot like maze walls surrounding them, and the path in front twisted and turned wildly.
Hobbes pulled the Transmogrifier Gun out from behind his ear (where it somehow had remained hidden) and turned Rose's jacket into a large ball of string.
"I liked that jacket," she complained, rubbing her suddenly freezing arms.
"Yes, but this is Dragon String," Hobbes told her, tying one end to a door handle with a double knot. "They say it was extracted from the stomach of a dragon and made into a filament with tools made of diamond in the heart of the Sun."
"Was it?"
Hobbes finished tying the knot. "No, it's just really strong string."
The monkey charged after them, all the tiny monkeys streaming behind it like a really weird parade. Hobbes grabbed the string, and, hastily unravelling it, dashed into the maze.
Rose followed, really hoping that the monkeys weren't clever enough to follow the string too.
They turned right, then left, then right again, then left, followed by another left, and left, and right, and eventually they couldn't remember which turn they had just taken.
They stopped at an intersection that looked exactly like the last three they had passed. They couldn't hear the sounds of the monkeys anymore.
"How do we get out?" Rose asked.
"Well, the whole idea behind the string," Hobbes pointed behind him, where the ball had been unravelling. "was so we could find our way out easily. Ever heard of Thesis and the Minotaur?"
Rose scowled. "My education was flawed. Let's not get into that. We just follow it out, yeah?"
Hobbes tugged on the string. It was strangely slack. They began to follow it along the path. After three left turns in a row, and going straight on, they found the end of the string. It looked like it had been chewed off.
Rose raised an eyebrow. "'Dragon String', huh?"
Hobbes shrugged. "Well, it was supposed to be strong."
"You sacrificed my favorite jacket for... this." She held up the severed end. Hobbes sniffed it, then licked it.
"I taste bananas," he announced.
Rose decided not to swear, just in case there were small children nearby. The monkeys poked their heads around the corner of the maze, and attacked.
"!" yelled Rose.
In the chair where the doctor would have been, a small dinosaur sat. It had somehow managed to obtain a pair of tiny little spectacles. He glanced up, and showed his teeth.
"That's your dinosaur," realized Jack suddenly. "Why is he in a doctor's office?"
"No idea," Calvin frowned, scooping Charles up and removing the spectacles. He looked at them. "Where did he find those?"
"No idea. Why is there a doctor's office in your Time Machine?"
"No idea."
"Great," Jack sighed. "Now we have tons of questions and no answers. What are we going to do about that?"
"No idea."
Jack sighed, making a 'shut up' motion with his hands. No, I have no idea how he did it, either.
The walls flashed with a sudden color.
"Was that hot pink?" Calvin asked.
It was. The walls then flickered to deep blue and then to that disgusting color known only as Urple. A mechanical sound that was basically very quiet feedback blared for a few seconds. Then a robotic voice spoke. "Testing. Testing."
"What was that?" Calvin turned around to Jack.
He wasn't there.
"Oh... well..." Calvin blinked a few times. Charles had gone too. "...this doesn't bode well."
Over in the maze, the monkeys were extremely surprised when Hobbes and Rose just disappeared, without warning. They blinked a few times before wandering off.
"Testing, testing," the robotic voice repeated again, this time becoming gradually more female in pitch. "This is a test announcement."
"What for?" Calvin said loudly into the office.
"Hello," Hobbes greeted. Calvin turned around.
"Hobbes! Don't step out like that!"
But Hobbes wasn't there.
"Hey! Toerag!" called a familiar voice.
Calvin spun around, trying to pinpoint the noise. "Ace! What are you doing in here-"
She wasn't there, either.
"Ooh," gasped Jack, who had suddenly appeared in front of him. "That's a bit-" He patted himself down. "Oh. I like this. Having a body is so much more fun, don't you think?"
Calvin blinked, taken off guard. "Er- yeah. I guess."
Jack wrinkled his nose. "I don't like this body much, though. Maybe try a female?"
Jack disappeared quickly, and was replaced by Rose. "Much better," she grinned, bouncing up and down a bit. "Hello there!"
Calvin had long since realized that this wasn't Jack or Rose, but someone taking their forms. "Who the heck are you?"
She winked flirtatiously at him, which was an expression on Rose's face he never wanted to see aimed at him ever again. "Oh, you know who I am. This is slightly rude," she added somewhat randomly. "Stealing people's bodies. I need to remix something."
She grinned, tongue poking out from her teeth in that way Rose always did, and fizzled out of existence again.
"Want to guess?" Rose's voice floated out from the walls around him. "I'll give you a clue. Hobbes had it absolutely right."
Calvin thought. "He said... the Time Machine was evolving?"
"Mmmhmmm," 'Rose' said. "Oh, I think I got something!"
Her voice was changing, becoming a bit lower. But it was still female.
"You're the Time Machine?" It all came to Calvin in a flash. "That's impossible."
A blank body in a white dress spun into the middle of the room. There were no facial features, hair, or any sort of marking at all. It was disconcerting.
"Let's see." The voice had now completely changed from Rose's. It was now mellow and slightly American, a bit like Calvin's own voice. "Skin tone. Fair."
The body's color changed to a healthy peach.
"Eye shape. Almond. Eye color. Brown."
A pair of eyes appeared on the body, and changed to a brown tone.
"Wait, what are you doing?" Calvin demanded.
The voice giggled. "Ever played an avatar making game? Nose. Average. Mouth. Red."
The nose and mouth appeared, the latter being coated with red lipstick.
"Eyebrows. Thin. Ears. Small."
Calvin sat back in the examination chair, watching the byplay curiously.
"Hair. Brown and wavy and awesome."
Medium length hair cascaded down the avatar's shoulders, brown and frizzy.
"Ooh, nice. I do like that. Medium height, please! And age: thirteen."
The final changes were made, and the avatar spun around in the air before settling down on the ground. It looked up, and there was a fresh gleam in its eyes. "Hello! I believe you could call me Sentience!"
Calvin stared. "Excuse me, who exactly are you?"
Sentience laughed. "I'm the Time Machine, silly!" She skipped over to him, and hugged him. "I've always wanted to do this!"
"What, hug me?"
"Yup!" Her eyes crossed. "This is quite cool. I've never had eyes before. It's so colorful!" She became serious. "How do you explain color to someone who can't see?"
He blinked. "...uh..."
"Nevermind!" She strolled over to a mirror and had fun staring at herself. "I'm pretty."
Calvin nodded. "Okay. How do I know you're actually the Time Machine?"
As a response, Sentience waved a hand at the ceiling. A trapdoor opened, and Jack, Rose, and Hobbes fell out. The trapdoor shut, and she continued to stare at herself.
As soon as Rose recovered, she pointed at Sentience, who was playing with her hair. "Who's she? You don't have a secret harem in here, do you?"
Calvin made a strangled noise in his throat. "She claims she's the physical manifestation of the Time Machine, and I just met her. And I don't have a harem!"
Sentience ran up to Hobbes, and buried her face in his fur. "Fuzzy!"
Hobbes shrugged. "I believe it."
"Really?" Jack asked. "Why?"
"Anything made by him would logically be insane."
Sentience grinned. "Oh, so incredibly true!" She stuck her arms out. "Hi, I'm Sentience, and I like warm hugs!"
Jack tentatively hugged her. "For some reason, I'm reluctant to flirt with her. Why is that?"
"She's insane?" offered Rose. "Also, she looks like she's about twelve."
"Thirteen," the Time Machine corrected. "And thanks!"
Calvin attempted to restore some modicum of sanity to the conversation. "If you're the Time Machine, then how come we got attacked by goldfish this morning?"
Sentience's mouth dropped open. "You did?" A tear rolled down her face. "I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to!"
She flung herself to the ground, sobbing. Everyone exchanged awkward looks.
"Uh..." Calvin offered. "It's okay?"
She popped up to her feet. "It is? Oh, that's a relief! I can fix all the problems easy, then!"
She concentrated hard, and closed her eyes. And then opened them five seconds later. "Fixed! That door over there should lead to the console room!"
Everyone filed over to the door, nervously glancing at each other. Thankfully, the door really did lead to the console room.
Rose seated herself on the jump seat, and sighed. "So now we have a new member of our dysfunctional group."
Sentience pouted. "Sorry, I can't actually go out of the Time Machine. I only exist physically in here." She rapped on the wall to make her point.
Calvin tried very hard to conceal his relief. "Well, that's a shame."
She brightened. "But I can go into your watch!" A beam of light came down from the ceiling, and swallowed her up. A moment later, her voice came out from Calvin's futuristic gadget watch. "Now we can talk all the time!"
Calvin looked positively terrified. Hobbes just grinned. The human form of Sentience was now sitting on the edge of the tree house. "I can also teleport!"
A swishing noise echoed through the beams, and Sentience was now behind Jack. She poked his back cheerfully. "Hello!"
A series of teleportation noises sounded as she tested out her new-found ability. Finally, she stood next to Rose. Another swishing noise.
Rose stared. "...did you just teleport to the same spot?"
"Yup!"
Hobbes clapped his paws together. "Well, that's all nice and good, but I'm feeling rather tired right now. So, if you could just put our bedrooms in the right spot...?"
"Done," Sentience chirped. "One last thing. I think I may be able to shapeshift!"
Calvin blanched. A sentient Time Machine with reality warping, teleporting and shapeshifting powers was more than he could handle. Especially since she was a girl.
"Uh, no, that's fine," he assured her.
"But I want to!" she gushed, and turned into a wolf.
Jack whistled appreciatively. "Nice."
Hobbes frowned, like he was trying to remember something. "Yeah... nice."
Calvin ran off to his bedroom, looking like he couldn't get there fast enough.
"I have a feeling we're going to be best friends, aren't we?" A now-human Sentience slung an arm over Rose's shoulders. "Can you help me get some clothes?"
Rose brightened at the prospect of extensive clothes browsing.
It was just another normal day in the Time Machine.
But where was Charles?
(A/N- And so Sentience joined the Time Machine crew.
Next week marks the beginning of my truly epic four-part story arc which will have you screaming at the screen. At least, I hope that's what'll happen.
Many thanks to ElvisRules41 who bought a dinosaur plushie and named it Charles! *sends virtual hugs*
SHAMELESS SELF-ENDORSEMENT- If you are a Whovian (which you probably are) check out He Probably Thought It Was Funny and On the Dangers of Firing Arrows, both of which have spoilers for Season 8.
See you in the reviews!
~Kitty)