Regular Spelling
Thoughts on language and more

Lockup

I found the book in the United States as well, in an educational facility among their collections of rare texts.  Many old books were on display there, and if I had the time I would have liked to stay and see what else was there, but for now the manuscript was my concern. The nearly five hundred years it had been since I had last touched the book certainly were apparent: pages were worn, faded, some removed, some rearranged, and it overall had the appearance of being handled by many people. Apparently nobody else had been able to read it either, from information included in the display, so I was glad it wasn’t just me who couldn’t figure it  out, but the writing became even more curious to me.

I noticed something strange as I took the book, which I can’t really understand. Trying to see if it would react again, I set the watch on the book and then took from the object case a small Bobbin, which had some of her hairs wrapped around it to suppress its power (the Bobbin’s power doesn’t matter right now, but for some reason human hair touching it caused its power to be suppressed) and set it on top of the watch, and sparks began to arc along the hairs from the book and the watch, but when I touched it, there was no reaction. For some reason, it seemed to react to her and her alone.

That trial did let me know one thing, though. The watch still had some of her power stored in it, because it didn’t have that reaction until we first directed her power into it with the Sundial, and so I had my way to travel back to the past. I needed to amplify it, though, and so my next destination had to be the master Object warehouse run by the CIA.

It took me some time to figure out where it was hidden, because a ton of false information regarding its location was seeded to everywhere so it couldn’t be found. To keep it secure, I won’t tell you where it is, but I finally found it hidden in a formerly unpopulated area of the United States, far from where any people lived so nobody would come across it accidentally.  It was also completely inconspicuous, located entirely underground with the only part above ground being a building appearing to be an old abandoned shack that served as the entrance.

I went down into the warehouse, and began to search for something that would serve my purpose. Eventually I found something that wasn’t really an Object, it was just a crystal full of energy that could be used to amplify what was already in the Pocketwatch, which was fine enough.

I then left the warehouse, and went to the headquarters of the CIA. From that point, it was simply a waiting game. I needed to wait for the first chance that the watch would show me the past before the event in 2007, so I could deal with it. It took several weeks before the first chance, and when it finally came, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to take it.

The time it showed me was only a few days before the event listed. It would be a very narrow window of opportunity, giving me very little time to convince the CIA to help, to round up a team, and to get to Japan to stop the bombing, but the urgency of my mission ultimately proved that it was a risk I had to take. I managed to rig the Ring, the Sundial, the energy crystal, and the Pocketwatch all together to open a new portal, and traveled to the past.

The past was bustling with people, and my appearance from nowhere became extremely alarming, even more so as I entered the CIA headquarters. I asked the receptionist for the administrator, David Raynor, telling them that I had information about an upcoming bombing that I needed to give to him directly, and I was soon escorted by some uniformed officers to a prison.

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I was expecting to be sent to the prison, of course, because  obviously the way I presented that seemed to be a threat, and with my briefcase of strange things, which they confiscated from me when I was locked up, but I had bet my strange situation would attract the attention I needed. Sure enough, after only a couple hours of lockup, a man came to my cell to speak with me.

“I am Director David Raynor,” he said to me, voice without emotion. “I was told you were asking for me specifically?”

I simply chuckled. “I didn’t think you would come yourself,” I lied, as the curiosity on his face defied his voice.

“You seem to be an anomaly, Mr…?”

“I won’t give you my name,” I replied frankly. “I have not used it in years. Call me the Collector, if you want an address.”

“Okay, Mr. Collector..”  He frowned, somewhat annoyed. “As I said, you appear to be an anomaly. Your fingerprints aren’t in any national database, your DNA certainly isn’t in any registered database, you seem to be a ghost. Tell me, then, where are you from, and what is this bomb threat?”

“If I tell you,” I said as I stared him down, “you have to be prepared to accept everything I say as is, without question. I cannot prove my story, but I can at least prove the bombing will happen to you.”

“Okay… Well I will reserve judgment for after you tell your story.”

I smiled, and nodded. “I am from the past, from the year 1600. I traveled to the future using that Pocketwatch they confiscated, combined with some magic my master has, to try and find the source of what you would probably refer to as the Apocalypse.”

The curiosity on his face became amplified, and I continued my story. “We saw here in the future that the world was destroyed, everybody dead, but we couldn’t figure out from the past how it happened, and when it started. So I traveled to 2080 to look around to see what happened, and I was able to find how and where it occurred, but I could not find out who was responsible, which is why I came to you.”

“Okay, presuming I believe your story, why come to us specifically? This sounds like something better suited for the FBI or NSA. CIA doesn’t have law enforcement functions. “

“The CIA specifically, and you personally, because of the Object Warehouse.”

He said nothing, lowering his eyebrows. “There is very little time, I’m afraid,” I said to him. “What happened was a dirty bomb detonated in the middle of Japan, leading to global thermonuclear war, and it is only a few days away from now. The briefcase of confiscated items are Objects I brought here with me from 1600, so none of them will be registered in any of your databases, but if you want some proof of what I say, go to the Warehouse and look for the Raven’s Egg, I have seen it there when I went there in 2080. That will show you the future up to 2 weeks in time, so you will have proof of what I say.”

He turned and left, saying nothing more to me. His face changed expression the moment I said thermonuclear war, so I knew I hit some nerve from that statement, and knew I had gained him as an ally. With nothing else to do, I laid back and went to sleep while I waited for Mr. Raynor to go to the Warehouse and use the Egg to see that what I said was true. 

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