The Watch – Part 108:

I explained that we would like to meet up with Tom’s parents.

‘Unfortunately,’ the receptionist said, ‘I’m afraid to say that they’re not here at the moment, but even if they were, you’ll need an appointment.’ I was afraid that would happen. It was a minor setback that we had already predicted and so we were prepared for the worse.

‘Do you know where they might be?’ I asked.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said, ‘but I don’t have that kind of information with me,’ she was being very professional with her answers, explaining the situation as clearly and as direct as she could with a hint of softness that she must have developed over the years of working here.

‘However, I will be able to give you a number and address of our other building,’ she said, ‘you can phone them to see if they are there instead.’ At least it was something.

‘OK,’ I agreed as I was certain that would probably be the most information I’m going to get from here without causing too much of a stir. The receptionist very kindly gave us the phone number and address and we soon left the building

‘Well,’ Amy said, sounding optimistic, ‘at least it wasn’t a dead end. It could have gone a lot worse.’

‘Do you have your phone?’ I asked Amy.

‘No.’

‘Me neither.’

‘And I’m willing to bet no money that you have no money to pay for a payphone,’ Amy said.

‘And you would win that bet.’

‘So what you are saying is, we have to go to the office, which is located,’ Amy looked at the map, ‘many miles away.’

‘But, we don’t have to travel the slow way, we can take the quickest shortcut there is.

‘Teleportation,’ Amy said excitedly. I looked around the area, seeing many people walking around, staring at the phones obviously lost in their world. But despite being so deep in their own minds, a strange event of someone disappearing or doing something out of the ordinary is surely going to draw attention, and that’s also something I don’t want. I explained all of this to Amy, which she understood and suggested that we go and find some secluded spot where we can teleport safely without being noticed, and being in an area that is surrounded by office blocks and other such buildings, finding that one place looked to be rather difficult.

We searched the area, and successfully finding two alleyways, but had a few people in them, obviously having a private conversation or something that they wanted to be kept from the public. The group in the second alleyway stopped talking rather abruptly and looked at us. They stared at us as we realised that this place was already occupied and we quickly turned on the spot and walked away as quickly as possible without looking suspicious, although I think that already happened.

‘That was awkward,’ Amy said. I agreed. ‘At this rate, we’re not going to find any place.’

‘How about in there,’ I suggested, pointing towards a rundown shop that had, by the looks of it, closed only a few days ago, but I couldn’t be too sure.

‘But won’t we be noticed entering a closed shop?’ Amy asked.

‘Yeah,’ I said in a voice signifying that my admittance of how bad that idea was.

Then I remembered something interesting that might help us. ‘I have an idea,’ I said louder than I had expected.

‘What’s that?’ Amy said enthusiastically.

‘How about we just teleport right here,’ I said.

‘How do you mean?’ She couldn’t help but squint her eyes with confusion.

‘Well,’ I started to explain, ‘I read somewhere, or maybe I watched it somewhere, but that’s not important right now, the important thing is that I learnt that the best way to be invisible is to be in the middle of a crowd; everyone is going about their business, they won’t even notice you, or even hear you talking. It’s a strange effect that is pretty sad if you think about it for too long.’

‘OK,’ she said, not sounding convinced. ‘So what, we just teleport out of here in the middle of here and no one will notice two people suddenly and spontaneously disappearing into thin air?’

‘I don’t think they’ll even notice that there were two people there in the first place to notice them disappearing,’ I said. ‘But it’s the best idea I’ve got and it beats running around trying to find a suitable hiding place. I mean, if you’re not totally convinced with the idea, we don’t have to go with it if you don’t want to.’

‘No, I think that it’ll work,’ Amy said thoughtfully. I could tell she’s going over the plan in her own head, trying to see if there was any aspect of it that didn’t work. ‘OK,’ she said eventually, ‘I’m willing if you are.’

‘Awesome,’ I said. I haven’t used that word in a while. It felt good saying it again. I imputed the necessary commands into the watch and the address into the locator. It brought up a place where the watch would take me to once I pressed the button.

‘Grab my arm,’ I said.

‘Ready,’ she said before I could ask.

I pressed the button once more, sending me and Amy through space once more. Our bodies being temporarily disintegrated and then put back together again at the other end. Due to it being the least eventful activity compared to travelling from one Universe to another or travelling through time, and due to Amy having teleported once before, the effects were non-existent, allowing Amy and I to not waste time recovering, however Amy did have to take a second to calm down as she still found it very exciting. In a way, even though we’re on a particular mission where the outcome would mean changing something from being dire to something uplifting once more, I was starting to get my excitement back as well, which gave me the motivation and optimism needed to carry on.

TO BE CONTINUED…

Thanks for reading

Antony Hudson

(TonyHadNouns)