Chapter 21: The Past

   “Oh, come on,” Carrie cried. “That’s beyond ridiculous!”

Rebecca’s eyes had lit up. Time travel…?

“Well, I say time travel,” Anonni said. “But there’s no way we actually could, even if it works in theory. The energy required would be colossal.”

Rebecca sighed. “How does that help us, then?”

“You don’t necessarily have to travel in time to have the advantages of it,” Anonni explained further. “While we wouldn’t be able to change anything, we can use it to gain knowledge.”

He pulled out a yellow cylinder �" bigger than the other two, so big in fact it must take up most of the room inside his rucksack. Two locks, and ten clips heavily sealed the top on. He undid those, and opened it up. Orange gas or steam hissed out, like as it would with a kettle. There were several sliders on the side of the metallic cylinder, with foreign symbols being the only means of identifying the purpose of each one. Anonni seemed to understand the meaning of each, as he moved the sliders across without hesitation. There was a large blue button above all the sliders. Once Anonni was done adjusting them all, he pressed it.

The orange gas wasn’t so much as seeping out not, but pouring out. As it had done with Billy and Paul, the gas formed a floating ball, which Anonni moulded and adjusted with his hands. Carrie stared at it in disbelief, having more trouble adapting to this new world she was being exposed to. An orange arch appeared, where the orange gas inside formed shapes, and slowly turned into other colours. Eventually what they saw was the interior of an unused warehouse or garage, with an old fashioned car inside. Rebecca couldn’t tell what type of car it was, though she suspected Paul would have known, for his room in his old house had been covered in posters of cars.

The image grew clearer. There were several boxes stacked up at the back of the warehouse, and a large door at the front. The image seemed still, though it was a video of events.

“This is where the locket should have first appeared in this world, sometime in the 1930s,” Anonni said. “I don’t know the exact date, and even if I did it would be impossible to convert into your years, as each world has a completely different calendar.”

“So, all the Interimo were scattered into separate worlds at the same time, and this is it when it appeared in ours?” Rebecca said to make things clear. Anonni nodded.

“I don’t get why the Knight wears such medieval clothing,” Anonni said. “I would presume he was a victim of the locket, but why didn’t it kill him…?”

“When will the Locket appear?” Rebecca asked.

“Any moment now…” Anonni said. “In just a few seconds… You’ll notice it; they give off a lot of energy when they first appear. Perhaps even an explosion, sometimes.”

They waited a few seconds. They waited for ten seconds. Half a minute passed. Nothing happened.

“Has it chosen the wrong place?” Rebecca suggested.

“It’s never been wrong before,” Anonni exclaimed. He got the Interimo detector, and shoved it through the arch. “I don’t know if this will work…” he admitted. “But if I set this to receive signals from the time window rather than Interimo from this world… Aha!”

Rebecca and Carrie peered into it, and for a moment both flinched in shock, due to it being full of a red liquid that resembled blood.

“It’s not what you think it is,” Anonni said. “Red means it’s very close, and I’m pretty sure it’s cancelling out the signals from today’s locket. But… if I’m right, this means the locket was in this world before all the other Interimo were sent…!

“Why could that be?” Rebecca asked.

“Maybe it was the first to be made?” Anonni suggested. “Or it was sent back in time…? That would explain why it has so many souls, and why the Knight is a knight… this is so confusing.”

“Was the Interimo you met before confusing?” Rebecca asked. Anonni chuckled slightly.

“That was simple compared to this! It still wasn’t an easy quest, destroying it, but we easily found out everything about that.”

Both Rebecca and Anonni were too engaged in the conundrum to notice how bored and confused Carrie was, though frankly neither particularly cared, either.

“Then there’s that second locket to consider, too,” Anonni said, and then suddenly remembered. “The second locket! Billy must still have it!”

“A second one?” Carrie cried. “No, please…”

“What?” Rebecca asked.

Anonni explained.

“There’s never been another Interimo in any of the cases I have heard of,” he concluded.

“How was the previous Interimo you encountered destroyed?” Rebecca asked him.

“Well, it took the form of a comb, and was destroyed by being put, I think it was, two hundred meters into the air,” Anonni explained.

“I hope it isn’t anything difficult like that this time,” Rebecca sighed. “Should we go and find Billy, do you think?”

“Yes, yes indeed. And that Paul, since they’re probably still together.”

Anonni pulled himself up by a tree branch and grabbed his sword.

“Won’t people stare if you just walk about with that?” Rebecca asked. “-Get up, Carrie.”

“I’m sure they would,” Anonni replied. “But as long as stare is all they do, we’ll hardly notice.”

Rebecca put her hand on her chest, and felt the vague scar that was still there from the locket. How many more injuries would she have to go through before it was destroyed? Could she survive this?