Edward Graves: Temporal Detective
Chapter 23: The Plan

Edward debriefed the others on the situation, everything about the Eternity Stone, the Museum, the G.I.I. and Indonesia. He also told them about Harbinger and his plan to take The Watch.

They found it hard to believe that there could be a traitor in The Watch, but when Edward explained their prisoner theory and told them about Geoff Proton, they were much more convinced.

In the end, they were sceptical about the Beast – The Time-Eater as it was sometimes known – but they agreed that no matter how crazy the enemy’s plan, the danger they posed was still very real.

Edward asked them – Archie, Melanie, Solomon, Ahmed and Annie – to go to The Watch and boost security where possible, also to isolate Proton and interrogate him.

Meanwhile, Edward and Jessica were going to address the Temporal Council, to convince them of the impending threat.

They went their separate ways, except for Jessica and Edward, who both returned to his place.

“Ah, it’s good to be back,” said Edward. As they Fluxed just beyond his front door. Jessica heard a crunching beneath her feet as she came into existence on top of a small pile of mail. She lifted up her foot, and saw a crumpled envelope with flowing handwriting, now smudged by dirt from her shoe. She smiled guiltily and brushed off the dirt as best she could, revealing a return address for a Mr. Forrester. She handed it to Edward, who just tossed it back on the pile.

“I’ll go through the mail later,” he said. “Mainly small case requests, I wager.”

Edward disappeared down the hall, but Jessica stayed back a moment to collect the mail and sort it into a neat pile. There were twelve letters in all, two of which were marked urgent, including Mr. Forrester’s.

“Some of them are urgent, Edward!”

“Everything’s urgent to someone!”

She sighed and put the pile down on a small side table by the door, then hurried off to find him.

“Feel free to wash and change before we head out,” he yelled from upstairs.

She decided to take him up on the offer and so went to the bathroom and drew herself a bath. Now this was a nice, old fashioned bath too, made out of bronze. She thought that she could soak in the heavenly, warm water until her skin was wrinkled from more than just the water. But seeing as though they were pressed for time, she kept it to five minutes. Well, maybe six.

She disliked having to change back into the same underwear, but she didn’t have anything else and she certainly wasn’t going to wear some of Edward’s dead wife’s Victorian knickers. She made a mental note to leave some clothes and essentials at Edward’s for future use. Jeez, who would have thought that the first time she left a toothbrush at a guy’s house, it’d be in a Nineteenth Century English town house?

Edward was already ready by the time she made her way downstairs and from the smell of him, he’d also cleaned himself up, probably in his private ensuite.

He’d changed his clothes and was now wearing a velvet frock coat of deep burgundy, grey waistcoat and matching trousers. His cravat was a shade darker than his coat and matched the Handkerchief in his left breast pocket.

He looked up as he adjusted his cufflinks, “Refreshed and ready to go?”

“Yeah,” she said, deciding not to go into the underwear situation. “I’m not underdressed am I? I mean, I’ve never gone before a regular council before, let alone a temporal one.”

“You look fine,” he said. “Well, technically you are underdressed seeing as you’re not wearing ceremonial robes, but neither am I, so it doesn’t matter. We haven’t got time for pomp and circumstance, so they’ll just have to deal with it.

He turned to the door and grinned, “You saved it for me!” He picked up his cane from its place by the door and cradled it in both hands, like he was examining some rare and valuable work of art.

“Of course,” said Jessica, “I cleaned it up a bit too.”

He gave it a twirl, remarkably without actually hitting anything and then leaned on it, crossing his ankles like Yogi Bear. Then he picked up a Top Hat, the same colour as his coat, from the table next to him and placed it on his head. He spent a moment adjusting it in the mirror, smiled when he got it just right and said, “Complete again.”

They went to the library and stood in the centre of the room, the late afternoon sun streaming in through the windows.

“Right,” said Edward, “The Watch is just like The Chrono-Logic, it exists inside of Timespace, but it’s a tad more difficult to get to. Just hold my hand and don’t let go, alright? And remember to just focus on The Watch.” He held out his right hand and she took it with her left.

They both closed their eyes and Jessica focused on the movement of time all around her – she concentrated on the movement of one second to the next; the steady breaths that came out of her mouth and the beating of her heart. She focused on matching the frequency of time; the rhythm of everything around her and she felt herself Flux into synchronicity with it. She opened her eyes and saw the vibrant blue wash of Timespace. Edward still had his eyes closed, so she shut hers again and focused on The Watch, the headquarters of the Temporal Council. With a sudden rush, she was being hauled away, but not laterally, as she was used to, but vertically. She opened her eyes and gasped as she saw Edward’s house, the whole street, below her feet. And not just the usual hovering that she was accustomed to in Timespace, they were heading straight up! Well, diagonally actually, but still up.

She looked up at Edward, who looked back at her and just smiled and then she looked past him, at the clouds which were getting closer and closer. She looked back down and nearly screamed when she saw the land below her; it was like looking at a satellite image. She coughed as they passed through the wispy, blue vapours of clouds which were frozen in time, coming out the other side to see the blue swirls of the night sky and hundreds of twinkling stars, which twinkled a lot faster in Timespace.

“How high up are we going?” she yelled, her voice distorted.

Edward looked back at her with that cheeky grin again, “As high as we can go!”

He pointed at something with his cane and when Jessica realised what it was, she could actually feel her jaw drop.

Because there, above her, getting closer by the second, was a city. A massive, sparkling city of towers and spires, suspended in space above the planet Earth.

And they were heading straight for it.

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