The Mysterious Blue Box

Claire rubbed the bump on her head, but she hardly felt the pain. Moreover, she couldn't figure out what she walked into. Chan the pachirisu bounded in front of her and squeaked repeatedly, indicating he noticed some obstacle in the way, though he was confused about it, too.

She tried reaching out, fully expecting not to touch anything because she couldn't see anything. But her fingers pressed against something purely invisible. It felt like wood, but wood was not normally invisible. Was this a trick of the unown?

"What is this?" Claire asked. Looking concerned and quite serious, she said, "This was not here when I came in this morning."

"Of course not," spoke the Professor. "I brought it in with me."

"Brought what in? Is it a kecleon?" (A chameleon pokémon.)

Making a face, he replied, "A kec—No! It's my ship."

"Your ship?"

"Yeah. I can't well travel back and forth across time and space without a ship."

Right. The time travel story. She decided to humor him. "But why's it invisible?"

"Camouflage," the Professor answered with that grin. "The only part of the camouflage mechanism that still works, mind you, but it's pretty effective. Terrible drain on the batteries, though. Any chance you're interested in a quick look-see?"

Even one as skeptical as Claire had to admit there was something invisible in front of her, whether or not it was a time machine. She nodded slowly, cautiously, and answered, "Why not? I've never been inside an invisible ship before."

The Professor laughed. "Just watch." He removed from the pocket on the inside of his jacket a small, metal tube. It looked like a fat pen with a blue geode jammed in one end. And when the Professor touched the tube, the rock lit up brightly like an exploding golem, and the tube creating a low vibration that pulsed with the shimmering light.

The invisible walls of the ship flickered twice just before the wood turned solid blue. The invisible device turned out to be a big, blue box hardly big enough for two people to stand inside. Claire recognized its appearance from the history books; it was a police call box from back before cell phones and Pokégear became widespread. A black plaque on the door read:

POLICE TELEPHONE

FREE FOR USE OF PUBLIC

ADVICE AND ASSISTANCE AVAILABLE IMMEDIATELY

OFFICERS AND CARS RESPOND TO URGENT CALLS

PULL TO OPEN

"What in the world…?" was all Claire uttered as she took in the sight. As long as she'd studied ancient technology, she never experienced such a mix of astonishment and embarrassment. "A phone booth?" she asked incredulously. "Seriously?"

"It's no phone booth," the Professor told her, the look on his face purely sincere. "The phone in there hasn't worked for seven hundred years. I keep meaning to get it fixed, but I only ever seem to think about it when I'm visiting a timeline pre-telephone. You know how hard it is to make a landline connection when people haven't even discovered electricity yet? It becomes quite the chore to locate a proper fuse."

Claire squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to block out the ramblings of this lunatic. "Do you always ramble like that?"

"Ramble? I don't ramble." A mere second later, he decided, "Okay, yes, I ramble from time to time. I prefer to think of it as telling a story. There's always a good story to tell. Everybody has one, and those who don't deserve to write one." He eyed Claire with that big grin. "You look like you've got a few stories to tell. So does your parcheesi there."

A quick glance at Chan to figure his meaning and Claire remarked, "He's a pachirisu."

"That's what I said. Now come on. You want to see the inside, don't you?" He stuck a simple, regular Yale key inside the call box, disengaged the lock, and pushed the door open. Claire stood off to the side where the sign was posted, never seeing inside the box.

"Wait," she protested momentarily. She pointed to the sign right beside the door the Professor pushed on. "That right there says 'Pull to open.'"

The Professor nodded. "Yes, it does. I know you studied linguistics but that doesn't strike me as one of your more impressive moments."

"You pushed," she interrupted.

He stopped for a moment and considered her point. He stepped outside the box, closed the door, and then pushed it open again. He repeated the action three times, as if he thought that must be a fluke and contrary to his typical behavior. Finally, he realized, "Okay, yes, I did. Do you want to meet Alph or not?" He disappeared inside the box, but his echoing voice sounded, "I will warn you: He's hates to be kept waiting so if he ever invites you to dinner, you'd better be on time."

Claire couldn't help but scoff. She couldn't understand what to make of this guy. He was clearly bonkers. How skilled and witty would the guy have to be for it all to be some kind of ruse?

"Why should I trust you?" she asked. He poked his head out of the box and looked at her like he'd been insulted. Smiling at the combination of his goofy attitude and his goofy ascot, she added, "You're clearly a mad man with a box."

"Rarely has a truer statement been made," the Professor assured her with a smile. "But I can tell you are starting to believe me." He pointed inside. "You almost believe this box can transcend time and space, and you really want to know if Emperor Alph was really such a stickler for schedules."

The two stood there for a moment, just staring one another down. Every synapse in Claire's rational brain told her to run away and call the cops right then and there, but that curious side of her teamed up with her sense of humor to convince her rational side, Calling the police is what this was built for.

"Fine. I'll take a look," she agreed. Disproving his assertions was the only scientific way to determine his sanity. "But it's going to be cozy, and I do not forgive easily."

"Understood," the Professor said, turning to lead her inside the box. "But I think you'll be pleasantly surprised." He disappeared behind the door, as far as he could go inside a box that was nine feet squared.

Claire stepped in front of the door to see what the Professor could be doing inside. He was still talking to her—saying something about Emperor Alph's family lineage—but she didn't hear his voice as anything more than a drone. Her brain diverted all energy to understanding the breach in physical laws right in front of her.

Inside the box, the Professor walked circles around a control panel more than four times his size while he continued telling his story. The machines reached to the sky more than thirty feet over her head, and they were on the second floor. Doors spaced every six feet around the inside of this little box. She could see a library through one of them; there was a swimming pool through another. This place was like a dormitory on the inside.

But the outside was only three feet wide on all sides. She walked around the box, dragging her fingers along the wood to be sure there were no other illusions to it. She could detect none.

And yet, inside looked like a dormitory, even the second time she looked. Back and forth she looked, but her brain could not reconcile the impossibility.

The Professor was leaning in close to the big control panel in the center of the main room. It almost looked like he was talking to the machine rather than to Claire. "He was quite cross with me. And there is no quicker method of angering a prince than to introduce yourself after his decree against Western education as The Professor." He moved away from the control panel and toward the door to reconvene with Claire. "But on the plus side, ritual curses can't really kill you, though they can give you severe cramps."

Right then, he stood before Claire again, recognizing the fear behind her eyes. "Now that I've reached a convenient stopping place, tell me where you are."

Claire hesitated to speak, not really sure where to start. "It's… uh… It's bigger on the inside."

"Yes, it is."

"That's not possible."

"Then how do you explain it?"

"I can't."

The Professor smiled. "You don't have to." He walked a big circle around the control panel with his arm out to demonstrate the space. "This is a whole other kind of technology far beyond the understanding of a linguist. The universe isn't limited to three-dimensional physics. It may be easiest to understand this TARDIS as a sort of alternate dimension entered simply by walking through the doors of a call box."

Despite her confusion, Claire's brain was beginning to adapt to what her eyes and ears were telling her. Although it was a little blue box on the outside, it was clearly something else inside.

"This technology… Is it alien?"

The Professor gave a single nod. "Yes."

"How did you get it?"

"I borrowed it."

"Borrowed."

Suddenly his expression turned defensive. "Yes, borrowed. I borrowed it, okay?"

"Okay." Her worry was now more than half replaced by curiosity. "Does it really travel in time?"

The Professor's expression changed back to glee instantly. "That, she does." He jumped back up to the control panel and placed his hand on a lever. "All you have to do is say the word."

Claire thought about it for a moment. If this man wasn't messing with her—if he was serious about his ability to take her back in time to the era of Emperor Alph—she had the opportunity to study the ruins in a way no archaeologist ever could. This could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

"Will you bring me home when we're done?"

"Of course. One trip there and back. That's all I promise."

Claire couldn't surprise her excitement any longer. "Let's do it."

The Professor smiled and leaned into the lever. "Then away we go!"