May 13th, 1864,
Spoliation of Evidence
Watson, once again, was standing in the study of the waterlogged house. The sun had risen back up from the west, restoring the evening's orange glow, which beamed through the windows and seared Amelia's misadjusted eyes.
Holding up her arm to defend herself from the light's assault, her gaze fell to the floor. There, interestingly enough, lay the dead man who had mysteriously disappeared. Amelia was stunned.
Why wasn't he here last time? She pondered.
"Watson?" Sherlock called from the next room over. "Did you call for me?"
"Uhhhh…" Amelia's eyes drifted around the room as she tried to think of a response. "M-maybe?"
The air itself skidded to a halt, bringing forth a silence that mocked the utter idiocy of her reply.
"…Maybe?" Questioned her mentor.
Amelia's anxiety reached a tipping point, and she abruptly lifted the dead man's upper arms and began dragging him across the floor. "G-give me a second!"
The question of the dead man's prior disappearance had vanished from her mind; all that she cared about now was learning more about her magic clock. And if she was going to do that, first she'd have to… borrow the body.
The process was quite simple, really; just sneak a dead body past the most esteemed detective in the world. She'd only be betraying every last inch of trust that her mentor had put into her for the past 17 years. No pressure.
Reaching the closet on the far end of the room, she eased it open with her shoe. It was a struggle to lift the dead man over the piles of wet pages and clothing that littered the closet floor, but eventually she managed to unceremoniously drop him inside and slam the door shut so that he wouldn't fall out.
She let out a heavy sigh. If only she hadn't called for her mentor when she found the body; that would've made this heist a lot easier.
So she began thinking of different ways she could get herself out of this situation.
Maybe if I get myself all wet, Master Holmes will treat me like last time and just take me to get a new coat… She brainstormed. That would at least give me some time to think.
She frowned and scrunched her face slightly. But then I would still have the problem of sneaking back here. I've got the clock, I already have more time. What I need is a good plan.
Amidst her wandering thoughts, Amelia suddenly found herself looking at the back of the head of a remarkably familiar blonde-haired girl. The girl had materialized just a couple paces in front of her without any spectacular light show or loud screeching noise to mark the occasion. The arrival was incredibly unremarkable, almost inconspicuous.
So inconspicuous, in fact, that it took Amelia a moment to realize what was going on.
In a panic, she pulled the closet back open and scrambled inside, slamming her knee into the doorframe and making a loud thud.
There wasn't a doorknob inside the closet, so she was only able to pull it mostly closed from her position. The dead man's head was also resting on her shoulder now, his cold, dripping wet skin brushing up against hers. It made her want to scream. But she needed to hold her breath and remain perfectly still. Paralyzed in fear, she could only watch through the slim opening as an exact duplicate of herself drew closer, her hand buried in the inner pocket where Amelia always kept her pistol.
Is this really happening? Amelia's mind screamed. Am I really about to get shot by my own revolver? It took all of her energy to hold herself back from panicking.
Her doppelganger stopped, however, when the door to the study slammed open. "Watson, you called for me?"
Once her past self and Sherlock had cleared out of the house, Amelia collapsed out of the closet door and onto the floor. The dead body followed suit as it comically slumped forward, landing face first beside her. She certainly didn't expect to run into a near-death experience at her own hand that day, let alone ever.
She knelt carefully beside the man, suddenly feeling hesitant to touch him. She'd already been intimate enough with a corpse today; she'd greatly prefer to never touch another dead body ever again.
But she gulped down hard. She'd searched dead bodies with Sherlock a few times before; this time, she would have to do it on her own.
She flipped the man onto his back, and began patting down his chest and reaching into his coat pockets, holding herself back from gagging all throughout. Most of her search came up empty, but at the last moment she discovered a rectangular object concealed near his stomach. It felt almost like a hardcover book. Sliding her hand into the coat's inner pocket, she felt her hands clasp a cold, glass surface.
It wasn't any kind of book she'd ever seen, that was for sure. What she'd found was a small metal sheet with some sort of cracked window pane affixed to it. Along the edge were a small number of protrusions with a slight amount of give to them. Something was beginning to excite Watson about seeing buttons on mysterious objects; she wanted to press them all. Reining in her enthusiasm, however, she pressed only one, and felt a satisfying click as it sunk ever so slightly into the device. Much to her surprise, a glowing white light appeared from behind the glass window, illuminating her face as she stared in amazement. It resembled a remarkably pristine, glowing slice of paper. Printed on the sheet was the text "Enter password to continue." The dates "Jan 17th, 1998" and "May 13th, 2022" were hastily scrawled in the corner about 10 times, as if whoever was writing it was in a panic.
She recognized the second date; that was the one she'd seen on the clock before. But the first one, that was new. Amelia's first guess was that it was another time when that monster attacked. Though, another possibility was that it was the time period the man originally came from. Regardless, he must've wanted to remember that day for some reason.
She returned her attention to the message in the center. "Enter password." Would she have to write it? Amelia scoured the study. She found a fountain pen on the desk but, given the flooding, she wasn't confident that it would have any ink. Sliding open the desk drawer, she snatched up the first pencil she saw, returned to the man's side, and placed the pencil tip to the glass paper.
"Okay, so…" Amelia thought aloud. "What's the password?"
Amelia tapped the pencil against her lips. Her eyes narrowed, she pursed her lips, and she tilted her head. She'd assumed a trance-like state, one that she'd learned from her master. To someone looking from the outside, it would have seemed as if the detective was deep in thought, ready to make a breakthrough at any moment. That password was mere seconds away from being written!
"Aaaaagh!" She shouted angrily, tossing the pencil across the room. "Why can't I be like Uncle Sherlock? He could probably guess it on his first try!"
The reality was that Amelia's mind couldn't have been more empty. Her mentor always had this knack for finding details that no one else had considered, and for years she'd been failing to learn this ability of his, despite how much effort she was putting in.
Cooling down a little, she slumped backwards and yawned. "Maybe I should just tell him; he'd probably know what to do anyways..."
Amelia held up the clock and stared at the shimmering surface. Something seemed so alluring about keeping this mystery entirely to herself. She couldn't stop coming back to that thought, even if she knew deep down that it was far beyond what she was capable of. Whatever course she would wind up taking, she decided it could wait at least until morning. She'd have all the time in the world to think about it.
