Edward Graves: Temporal Detective
Chapter 24: The World Inside Time

“This might get a bit rough, but just stay calm!”

“What?” she yelled back, having barely heard Edward, distracted as she was by the shimmering blue-white palace, which shimmered like it was made of light.

She realised that they were getting awfully close to one of the spires, but before she could ask Edward whether this thing actually had a front door, she was blinded by a vibrant, white light.

It filled her vision and hurt her head, just behind her eyeballs, but then it vanished and there was nothing.

Blackness. Darkness. Nothingness.

That was all she could see. More than that, that was all she could feel, all she could think. It was as if the nothingness was all that there ever was, all that there ever had been or would be. The girl that had been Jessica Lazarus no longer had any sense of identity or emotion or feeling.

All that existed of her was a dull thought at the back of her mind; or rather the idea of a thought. A thought that perhaps there was something missing, although what that thing was, she had no idea.

The girl that had been Jessica Lazarus drifted on in the cold and the darkness for an eternity, yet she seemed indifferent to her fate.

This was all that there was and one could not want more than what was.

As the centuries turned into millennia, she drifted without thought or feeling or understanding or care.

Soon, strange new concepts began to bite at the back of her mind, which became ideas, which became thoughts. Where was she? Why couldn’t she feel anything? What was happening? Oh god, how long had she been here for?

Jessica Lazarus began to remember more and more.

She remembered her name for one thing. Then she remembered her mother.

On and on, the memories came to her - flooding through her mind like a tsunami. How could she have forgotten this?

Tears began to well in her eyes.

How could she have forgotten what made her, her?

She remembered when she was three and her mother told her that daddy wouldn’t be coming home anymore. She remembered her mother’s tears and her confusion.

Bright light filled her vision again and then she collapsed on a cold floor. Was it tiled? No, it was something else. Metal, that was it, how could she forget what metal was? Then again, how could she forget who she was?

She felt hands grabbing hold of her and rolling her over. Someone was saying something. Her name, they were saying her name. More and more noises came to her now and she became aware of a dull throbbing in the back of her head. She felt the air passing through her nostrils and she detected an unfamiliar yet pleasant scent.

Slowly she opened her eyes and saw Edward Graves and his fancy clothes, staring back at her.

“Hey,” she said slowly. “What’d I miss?”

He gave a relieved smile and helped her up. “Are you OK? The first tip to the Watch can be a little traumatic, but it’ll be easier next time, now that the security protocol has registered your Timeline. Do you remember what happened?”

Jessica had a vague notion of having spent a period of time in the dark and she could remember some...actually she couldn’t quite recall anymore.

“I,” she started, “I can’t really remember. It’s like waking up and trying to remember a dream, you know?”

Edward smiled, “Yes, I do.”

She looked around and took in her surroundings, something which didn’t take long.

“Are we in a glass tube?”

“That is probably the most accurate way of describing our current location, yes.”

She turned on the spot and confirmed that yes, they were indeed in a glass tube about as big as a revolving door, with a metal floor and ceiling. Through the glass she could see more tubes stretching out on either side of them and before them was an electronic door.

“This is a decontamination tube,” said Edward. “After the security protocols determined that we were allowed to be here, they transferred us to a point in the Watch’s timeline which corresponded to our present selves and then materialised us inside one of these for decontamination.”

“But how does...”

No sooner than the words had begun to tumble out of her mouth, five jets of foamy liquid began to spray down from the ceiling, as a red light flashed and an electronic voice declared that decontamination was in progress.

Jessica squealed as the foam seeped down her shirt and soaked through her coat and onto her skin. She could even feel it building up inside her socks and underwear. Well, at least they’d be clean now.

She opened an eye and saw Edward holding his coat open with his hat in his hand, humming like he was having a relaxing shower.

Just as she didn’t think she could feel any more violated, the jets stopped. For a few moments she stood there chattering with her hair clinging to her face, but before she could say anything two giant heaters in the floor and ceiling began to blow hot air all over her body. This didn’t feel as bad as the foam and she was actually able work with it, to dry her hair as it blew about her head like a red tornado. She did have to occasionally pin down her coat and satchel when they threatened to blow too high in the air, or her shirt when it threatened her modesty.

If she looked funny then she knew that Edward looked hilarious. His hair was practically vertical and his cravat was floating over his face like a weird mask. He wasn’t even bothering to try and hold his coat down as it reached towards the ceiling.

Gradually the wind died down and Jessica was left with the mother of all frizzy hair, as was Edward.

She cracked up laughing when she saw his eyes peeking from beneath his crop of fluffy brown hair, which was usually sleek and styled.

“You look like a shaggy sheep dog,” she cackled.

Edward frowned, “Well you look like Elmo after he stuck a knife in a toaster, but you don’t see me bringing that up, now do you?”

That made her stop laughing.

Not wanting to look like an electrocuted Muppet, she took her hairbrush from her satchel and tried to bring her hair back into a manageable state. Edward did likewise with a comb that he procured from his coat pocket.

“Never visit The Watch without a comb or brush,” he said, before putting his hat back in place. “Decon-hair is the number one cause of embarrassment for Archaics.”

The red light turned green and the tube opened up with a hiss and the release of some steam. Edward led her out of the decontamination room and into a silver, metal corridor with lines on the walls and strange lights on the ceilings.

“How do you think the others are doing?” asked Jessica.

“If there’s any measure of luck on our side, then The Watch should be in the process of entering siege mode.”

“How would we know if that were happening?”

“There’d be alarms going off for one thing.”

Jessica couldn’t hear anything other than the sounds of their footsteps echoing down the corridor.

“Exactly,” said Edward, even though she hadn’t said anything. They’ve been caught in soup of bureaucracy; it runs like treacle through this place.”

“Well if they haven’t convinced the Council to see you, what will you do?”

“I’ll go to the Grand Epoch’s chambers myself and drag him down to the control cluster.”

“They don’t like you do they?”

“Let’s just say that my relationship with the council is a love-hate one. By that I mean that they love to hate me.”

They passed through an intersection and it dawned on Jessica, just how quiet it was.

“Where is everybody?”

“It’s the middle of the night, local time. We’ll run into more people as we get closer to the control cluster; the night staff.”

They rounded a corner and then passed through a large, hexagonal set of sliding doors. What was on the other side warranted a “Wow!” from Jessica.

The cavernous room that they entered wasn’t so much a room as it was a gigantic command structure. It was like a military complex and a hi-tech laboratory all rolled into one, all sterile white and metal grey, little balconies jutting out over the central space like an atrium. Looking to the ceiling, she saw the night sky stretching out above her head, covered in swirls of blue light, like a Van Gough painting. The stars blinked at her through a layer of glass and she couldn’t help but feel wonderment in every fibre of her being. It looked truly magical.

All around the control cluster, people in white and grey uniforms were sitting at computer terminals or walking around with strange equipment in their hands. The biggest shock, by far, came when she saw a large, brown and green creature about the size of a gorilla with a wrinkly trunk walking around in the same uniform.

She grabbed Edward’s sleeve. “Edward,” she gasped, “is that...an alien?”

Edward followed her finger, “Don’t be silly, that’s Gerald and didn’t your mother ever tell you that it’s rude to point?”

“But...he’s...”

“He’s from Earth, born and raised in the Fifty-Ninth Century, but his ancestors came from a little planet called Novak which, sadly is no longer with us.”

“But...what, so are there alien Archaics too?”

“Well, we’re not really sure about that,” said Edward. “We’ve yet to encounter any other races with the Archaic gene. Gerald here inherited his from his mother, whom is human and an Archaic. As far as I know, he’s the only alien time traveller out there, but who knows, nothing’s impossible.”

“Yeah,” said Jessica, “I’m really beginning to see that.”