CHAPTER 12
We left the base (now almost completely destroyed) the way we went in. Enigma was defeated and now we had to be concerned with some random guy called Captain Tonitrua, who was presumably some guy in the future. We climbed down the volcano and walked through the jungle. We reached the beach and Kiera got out her control panel for the time manipulator. She punched in some coordinates. “OK, you need to type in 5020050251517101061” I got out my control panel and started to type in those numbers. “These ones aren’t going to make us end up on the roof of the Houses of Parliament, right?”
“No, no, of course not!”
“OK, I am trusting you!”
“That is brave of you!”
“Yeah, ready to activate?”
“No, but oh well!” Kiera said with a slightly manic grin, “Ready for a briefing on Captain Tonitrua?”
“Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.” I pressed the activation button on my time manipulator and I could see Kiera doing the same. We both dissapeared in a blue flash, we were back in the future. We landed, not on the Houses of Parliament, but on the Time Association building roof. This was a relief, I don’t think I could have coped with another Houses of Parliament incident! The Boss was standing there. “Welcome back” he said, in his Brian Blessed voice. “You two look a little battered!”
“Yeah, that would cut it” Kiera said, looking around at the people around her. I looked around, the people there were the same people that saw us off, it was the same time of day. It was apparently just a few seconds after we had left. Almost no time had passed since we had left. I was going to be really jet-lagged, I could tell. Health monitors were strapped to Kiera and I and we were taken down to the medical bay for checking. I tried to resist, but gave up – I was too tired. I was put in a medical bed and I fell asleep, a fair amount of time had passed by the time I woke up. It was 7AM the following morning. There were probes attached to my body and I could see an ECG machine to my right. I wasn’t sure what the protocol was for leaving so I just took the probes off and walked downstairs to get some breakfast. Kiera was already there. “How did you get here so early?” I asked.
“I didn’t fall asleep!” she said, “the procedure only took about twenty minutes, then I was allowed to leave. I went upstairs, sat in my room and read”
“Wow, I feel so unproductive” I said, in a bit of a deadpan voice.
“The briefing on Captain Tonitrua starts at two, so you can take a leisurely start.”
“I think I will” I said, as I walked over to the ‘not quite porridge but very similar to porridge machine’ and dispensed some breakfast. I took it to the table Kiera was sitting at and started to eat it, “What is this stuff anyway?”
“Honestly?” she said, grinning a little
“Yes…” I was now a little nervous about what this stuff could actually be
“Honestly, I have no idea!”
“I was not expecting that”
“Have you been able to expect anything?”
“Nope”
“There you are then” I continued eating my breakfast and almost didn’t care that I had no idea as to what it was. I then looked over at Kiera, “So, what are you going to do to fill your time before the meeting?”
“I have things to do, but if you are stuck for things to do, I recommend honeing your ligretto skills. If you go down to see Smart then you can obtain one of the glass computers and download the app onto that. Also, since you have completed your first mission without dying then he may give you some gadgets”
“Gadgets?” I asked, a little sceptically “What gadgets?”
“Gadgety Gadgets”
“That is not particularly helpful”
“I know, you will find out when you get there, he always gives different gadgets to different people, depending on how he feels”
“Right, do you know when the lab opens?”
“Yeah, drop in any time after nine, then there should be someone there.”
“Thanks”
“That’s OK” Kiera got up, “See you at the meeting”
“Yeah, see you later” Kiera left, and I finished my ‘not porridge but suspisciously like porridge’ and went up to my room for a shower. I was provided with a new kit, trousers, no longer ripped off at the bottom and worn holes, My black t-shirt was clean. I wondered how many t-shirts and pairs of combat trousers the Time Association must get through. It was five to nine, and so I decided to go downstairs and visit Smart. I took the lift down to the basement as I had yesterday and I arrived at Smart’s lab. I entered and looked around. “Smart?”
“Hello Commander Lane! You survived your first mission I see!”
“Yes, yes I did”
“Good, so, what are you doing here?”
“Kiera said that I should come down here to get some gadgets”
“Why did she say that?”
“I don’t know really” I didn’t think that it would be this tricky to get some gadgets!
“Well, had you got anything in mind?”
“Not really, Kiera had a lock picking gadget that looked kinda cool, but I don’t know what else you have really.”
“Well, I can provide you with a lock picker!” Smart waddled over to a drawer on one of the massive walls and came back with a lock picking gadget that looked almost identical to Kiera’s, Kiera’s was just a little bit more battered. “Here you are” he said, giving it to me “anything else?” Smart asked. “Well, nothing particularly specific, but if there is some other cool stuff it would be greatly appreciated” I replied, hoping Smart would give me a gadget that would be fun to use.
“Well, I do have something fresh out of development, if you would like to take a look”
“I would love to!” I said, grinning slightly – I probably looked a little psychotic. Smart waddled over to a cabinet on one side of the room and I followed, curious to find out what this new invention was. He pulled open the cabinet and showed me what looked like a button on a sphere, about the size of an apple. I looked at it; I was a little disappointed – what good was a button on an apple sized sphere? Smart could see my disappointment. “Step back” he said, raising the sphere above his head in a dramatic fashion. He pressed the button and he became invisible and then turned into a large cabinet. He then reappeared. “What was that?” I asked, dumbfounded, this was completely weird but seriously cool! “It is a sort of invisibility device, but so much better, you see, if it were just to make you invisible then people could still bump into you and discover you, Thus, I created this, it makes you immediately invisible to protect you (and potentially a friend) but then it scans the surroundings to find an object that is supposed to be there and therefore the people will not suspect that you are there, they just see the object. You see, when I was in here it turned me into a locked cabinet, people can touch it and not be suspicious. You see the usefulness of it, in a forest it may turn you into a tree or a large rock. The possibilities are endless.” He took a breath to keep talking, but I interrupted him before he could see anything else, I see why Kiera did not allow him to explain about the alloy in the time manipulator – we would have been there for hours! “So, are you going to issue one of these to Kiera as well?”
“No, I shouldn’t need to, one device should cover two people”
“Thanks, Smart”
“It’s a pleasure to help” Smart said, beaming in his slightly creepy manner. I nodded and left the lab, bringing the invisibility thing. “Does it have a name?” I asked, before the lift door closed
“No, maybe you could come up with a name for it!”
“I shall!” I said, as the lift doors closed. I decided to go up to the meeting room ready for the meeting. I took the lift up and walked into the conference room.
