Temporal experimentation expedition 1 (pt 1)

Good day chaps! I am pleased to report that some semblance of order has been restored around here after the last weeks festivities. I have managed to tame the chaos in my office, I had some assistance from young Lucas, his mother made him help out to teach him not to break into peoples offices and wreak havoc. To be honest I am not sure he was particularly helpful, the chronology of the reports may be a little hit or miss for a little while. He had more regard for neat piles than organisation. Nevertheless I have a functional office chair and some passable snacks so things are looking up. Most importantly, I have found that marvellous report from Peter and Zsofia. I think it is best if I leave the report in young Paddlefoot’s words, he has a bit of a way with them and knows some really good ones like temporal displacement and personification and the like.

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Temporal Expedition 1

Participants: Zsofia Smoothcoat and Peter Paddlefoot

It was 11:30 on the 17th January and Zsofia and I were ready for the off. We had been fully briefed by Brian and Debbie about the proper way to swim through the temporal pool (in the direction of flow for forward in time) and we had been equipped with some experimental technology in the form of emergency return devices. Brian was very reassuring and said that there would be no need to use these as nothing at all would go wrong, but if we did have to use them, we would almost certainly get back in one piece. He wasn’t clear whether we would be in one piece each or one between us. He glossed over that a little when I asked. Anyway, we were ready to go, Zsofia had her hat held to her head very firmly and I was holding my emergency notepad and pencil.

The time dial was set for 10 mins in the future, Cedric was instructed to start running in the wheel, and as the flow started Zsofia and I dived into the pool and swam forwards as fast as our paws would carry us! I can’t describe exactly what it felt like to be plunged forward through time, but I do now have more of an appreciation of how a cork feels when it is taken out of a bottle!

It all seemed to be going according to plan, once the squeezy feeling subsided and the water calmed, we climbed out of the time flow tank and took a good look around. I was expecting to see the jubilant faces of Brian and Debbie waiting for us and little Cedric sitting on top of the time wheel. Instead we saw…nothing.

It was totally dark in the time lab with not an otter to be seen. This was most perplexing. I turned to Zsofia who was clearly as puzzled by this as I was. After a brief discussion we concluded that something had gone awry and we were not 10 mins into the future. I postulated that we must be at least 10 hours in the future as it was obviously night time and there was no one around. Zsofia thought we might be even further forward than that as there were some subtle changes to the lab which couldn’t have been achieved in 10 hours. The strangest thing was the complete lack of otters. The Raft is made up from very enthusiastic hardworking otters and many of them turn up at all hours of the night to check on experiments or make notes on new ideas. The idea of a completely otterless research area is unheard of.

We decided that as long as we were there, we may as well try to find out exactly when we were. While I was making some notes on the whole thing, Zsofia had been nosing around the lab. It seemed that the temporal team had been unusually fastidious and locked all of the papers away there were no clues of an sort; She stopped short of actually breaking into cupboards mind you.

We headed off down the exit tunnel towards the communal areas of the Holt to see what we could find. The whole place was unusually dark and quiet. The usual bustle of the place was quite missing, it was beginning to seem very eerie! We continued down the tunnel, at a reasonable speed but kept our ear and eyes peeled for anything to give us an idea what was going on.

After a few minutes, we had passed several seemingly deserted labs and a door labelled “Felis silvestris: Do not Disturb”.  Zsofia was very keen to try this door, and we were having an animated discussion when we saw a flash of light further down the tunnel. At last, a fellow otter. We hurried towards the light, thinking we may finally get some answers, when an entirely unfamiliar otter comes around the corner. The fellow was wearing a very official looking peaked cap with a light attached to the brim. We continued towards him thinking he may have answers for us when he calls out, “You There!! Stop!! What are you two doing out after curfew!?!”

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To be continued…