The modern interpretation of plague doctors, while factually incorrect, are very sexy and very valid. It’s a good aesthetic. The modern masks for them are excellent. I don’t actually know where I intended to go with this post.
Also, I may or may not have thrown the prime minister into the trunk of my car.
1. I knew he was going to complain about my driving.
2. I don’t care about him.
3. Do you know how hard it is to fit six people in the Laytonmobile comfortably, let alone seven or eight? Of course I put him in the trunk. He’s short, but not particularly compact.
I keep putting off explaining what happened near the end of last month, and... I know it won’t ever happen unless I just sit down and write it. So. I’ll try to keep this as brief as I can, but I have... a lot of details that I have to get out, too. So, this will probably end up being long.
The time machine demonstration was a threat and a kidnapping in one. I’d suspected that from the beginning when we got there. There were too many people that didn’t make sense. The police. The (now ex) prime minister. Myself. A lot of people who could have gotten involved in the “accident” at the Institute of Polydimensional Research, but didn’t, or failed.
It was planned from the start that Bill Hawks would be the one to enter the time machine. That was planned by Dimitri, I assume. To make him feel the same way Claire felt when Hawks forced her into the time machine to test it, knowing that the machine was fundamentally flawed, knowing that it very well could have killed her, for money and power.
He survived. He disappeared in the blast, along with Dimitri -- posing as Alain Stahngun, a man that does not exist -- and some of Dimitri’s assistants. I don’t know how everyone escaped it relatively unharmed.
I later got the letter from “Future Luke”, and also from Celeste. I won’t use quotations around that name from here on out. And I’m under the impression some of you know Celeste, or have at least met her. Both told me to go to a clock shop on Midland Road.
Said clock shop allegedly contained a time machine. And I wondered if it was true. I wasn’t entirely certain of the nature of it. I... knew that Claire survived the first time machine. It was as likely as anything else.
...it was stupid of me, but I brought Randall, Emmy, Flora, and Luke with me. I still feel horrible about it. I put all of them in danger taking them with me. I know they all would have insisted on coming anyway, and that they would have come whether I liked it or not, but... still.
We were on a wild goose chase for most of the time. Being led around by Future Luke in a bid to prove to me that this was, indeed, the London of the Future, 10 years into the future. Buses had been replaced by metropolitan subways, my mentor was in the hospital, structures replaced and structures added, including a lighthouse along the Thames. The lighthouse will be important. Believe me.
At the same time, while we were around, we heard rumours of a masked man with a flair for the dramatic. I know I’d told Desmond where I was going, just in case things went awry, but it sounded like he’d gone there himself. Which... truthfully... I had kind of anticipated.
While down there, I also saw someone who looked... just like Claire. Celeste, I assumed. But at the time, I had places to be, so I... had an episode in the middle of the street, and continued on my way.
We finally met with Future Luke in the casino in this London. I thought right away that I recognized his face, but I kept my mouth shut. I knew that there had to be something more to all of this, but that I would need to play along in order to get the full story.
He claimed that I became evil in the future. That all my friends and loved ones died, and that I became so consumed by grief that I became a crime lord, desperate to put together a time machine to change the past. But things already seemed off. Future Luke seemed to be surprised by all these people I knew. I could tell he was struggling when Randall listed off people we knew that would have stopped me.
As we were about to leave, the mob that ran this London, the Family, shot at us. Randall and I got grazed by bullets. We kept everyone else safe. Scared them off.
...we split up after that. It was late. We were injured. We decided to regroup the next morning.
When we got to the hotel, we met with the woman who looked like Claire.
...and it was her. She joined with us after that point. Claire had survived the time machine, like I thought. She’d hidden down here for the past two years, sent five years into the future. She warned us to be wary of Future Luke. Something I could agree with. We didn’t... have a proper reunion. I wasn’t sure how to respond to it all. I essentially shut down and wanted to focus on the investigation.
I contacted Paul, later. It turned out he was staying in the same hotel we were, anyway. He was indebted to the Family and owed them money, and he had used his robot he’d stolen from St. Mystere to pose as my mentor, Dr. Schrader, and also as the dean. It was meant as both a call for help, and Future Luke’s way of trying to prove that I really was in the future. Our next move was to go to my “future self’s” hideout, which was...
And I still have to roll my eyes over this...
in Chinatown, in a place called the Towering Pagoda.
So, not only am I evil, I’m pretty sure I’m racist in the future. I won’t go into the spiel about how I would rather have a headquarters in the woods and have a beautiful one. Just that if I were going to have an ideal headquarters where I might be evil, I would want something entirely different.
...but I asked Paul to take my place before we enter the tower. I had research I wanted to do, and I also had traps I wanted to set. I knew that the tower was going to be a trap in and of itself. Escaping from the tower would be difficult. If I ran the Family, then I would be calling them for help, for sure. The traps would at least delay them and buy us all time, if need be.
It turned out Dimitri had been posing as my future self, as well. He revealed that he’d taken Hawks hostage. Frankly, I... didn’t really care about Hawks. He could’ve kept Hawks, for all I cared. The man had sent out thugs to beat me to death for trying to investigate Claire’s disappearance, and I was lucky to make it out alive, and he’d continued to threaten me each time I tried to dig into her disappearance, and stole my notes and theories to keep me silent. I have no fondness for the man.
...but Dimitri had fled, and I felt that we were running out of time. We were lucky that Desmond and Reiner had come in time to get us out of the situation so we could avoid the Family coming for us.
Luckily for us, Claire knew where we would need to go next. She knew where the scientists Dimitri had kidnapped for the time machine were kept, and took us there.
...
What was down there, in that research facility...
They weren’t just making a time machine. I don’t know if Dimitri knew that. But there was so much down there. Armaments. Missiles. Tanks. There was no need to have so much of that for a time machine. I knew Dimitri just wanted to change the past.
...
And by this point, I’d already known that Future Luke wasn’t who he claimed he was. I knew he was the boy whose life had been destroyed by the time machine accident. His parents had been killed in that explosion. Adopted by a wealthy, older woman who had quite the fortune left behind when she died that he could lean on. His real name was Clive Dove. And I had a feeling that it was actually Clive who had prepared all of this.
We went back to the restaurant on the Thames, where everyone who was involved in this fiasco was. Clive had told us he would meet us there. Dimitri, who was nowhere to be found at the research facility, bartended here on his off time as a getaway.
I revealed to everyone who Clive was. And he stole Flora, and fled to the lighthouse. We followed suit. Paul had tinkered with a copy of my car, and we flew to the fortress.
We rescued Flora, and confronted him. Claire managed to talk Clive down from destroying London. She apologised for what she and Bill Hawks had done. For destroying his family and his life. I... I’m still surprised that he backed down.
We still had to rescue Bill Hawks, but... we had proof enough to get him arrested. Chelmey made sure of that.
I’m sorry for how disjointed all of this is. I still haven’t... processed it all.
...
So many people could have been hurt. We had never been in the future. Future London was just a copy hidden underground, in these vast caverns. Clive planned on destroying London. And... I saw everything underground.
We got drugged on the Molentary Express and I didn’t get to take my trazodone. Had I known that we would be drugged on the deluxe passenger car for the super rich, I would’ve taken it before hand, but now I feel actively like I need to rip off my flesh and also take off my lower jaw, and I feel disgusting.
